CONTROL, NEGOTIATION AND FORM OF

MIGRANTS’ URBAN HOME

SHEIKH SERAJUL HAKIM

[B. Arch (BUET, Dhaka)]

[MSc (IHS, Rotterdam)]

A THESIS SUBMITTED

FOR THE DEGREE OF

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE

2013

ii

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the thesis is my original work and it has been written by

me in its entirety. I have duly acknowledged all the sources of information

which have been used in the thesis.

This thesis has also not been submitted for any degree in any university

previously.

Sheikh Serajul Hakim

12 August 2013

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to convey my utmost gratitude to National University

of Singapore (NUS) whose Graduate Scholarship Program allowed me to begin this

journey back in 2009. My study would not have been possible had the Dean’s office

of the School of Design and Environment (SDE) chosen me. My gratitude goes to

Department of Architecture (DoA) and its administrative stuff, each of whose support

has been essential during the challenging years of my PhD candidature. I am also

indebted to my employer in Bangladesh, i.e. Khulna University, for granting me the

study leave in the first place and hence allowing me to elevate my skills, expertise

and knowledge. I wish to thank all the associated stuff of Khulna University, whose

support has been crucial for a smooth completion of this quite demanding pursuit

abroad.

In terms of academic support, I can only convey my sincerest of gratitude to my

supervisor, Dr Joseph Lim Ee Man. He has certainly been the father figure to me –

way beyond I have ever expected of a supervisor. Starting from my early

communication with him while I was writing my MSc dissertation in Rotterdam in

2008, Dr Joseph has been the most eager, supportive, compassionate, often critical

but always insightful. Whatever level of achievement I would possibly accomplish

through this research, I would owe primarily to his constant engagement with my

work process, to his commitments to patiently listening to everything I had to say,

and to his relentless encouragement to dig deeper into the socio-spatial issues of

migrant habitats in Khulna. He saw potentials in my initial proposal, he believed in

me and in my abilities, and he indeed knew how to extract the gem out of this

apparently ordinary. It is through him, I have learnt how to do a research as

demanding as mine has been. There were times, when I was initially upset by some of

iv

his decisions. But at the end of the day, all of Dr Joseph’s decisions brought along

outcomes which only added value to my research and helped me become a better

academic.

I am also indebted to another few academic personnel at NUS. In that, Dr Johannes

Widodo must be mentioned first. He deserves a mention not only because of his role

as my co-supervisor or because he has been the most contributing member of my

Thesis Committee (TC). I, in fact, have not found many at NUS, who has been as

inspirational as Dr Widodo has been. He has inspired me to pursue this apparently

tricky domain of informal settlements while I was doing the Independent Study

Modules under him in 2009 and 2010. He has been equally encouraging during the

one-year absence of Dr Joseph in his guidance of my work along the appropriate

track. He helped my work to focus on where it should have focused and hence retain

its disciplinary affiliation. In addition, Dr Wong Yunn Chii’s most valuable critiques

during my Qualifying Examinations helped shape the theoretical grounding of my

thesis and orient it to the right direction initially. Wong Chong Thai Bobby’s

comments and his patience presence during my numerous presentations before the

Thesis Committee also helped a lot. The theoretical module on ‘domesticity’ under

Dr Lilian Chee certainly helped me change the way I used to look at architecture

before. Her ‘discourse-like’ methodology had left great influence on me in terms of

viewing architectural space rather as a product of socio-politics. And finally, Dr Lai

Chee Kien and the many serendipitous encounters with him at different niches of

NUS at the most crucial of moments during my candidature certainly gave me timely

confidence and imparted the essential sense of control over whatever I was trying to

present or write.

I would like to particularly mention the contributions from my fieldwork teams. I

begin so by thankfully acknowledging the two groups of undergraduate students from

v

the Disciplines of Architecture and Urban and Rural Planning from Khulna

University, who helped me, collect spatial/architectural data and socio-economic data

respectively from the selected migrant settlements. In addition, my cousins, Planner

Raiyan Al Mansur and ‘to-be-architect’ Sheikh Ataour Rahman have been

instrumental in their efforts of accompanying me and helping me particularly during

my fieldworks every possible way they could. These two were always there whenever

I was in need of them. My colleagues – Hafizur Rahaman and Rashed Bhuiyan from

NUS, and Apurba Podder from Cambridge, who are also akin to my brothers, have

been inspirational above anything. There have also been a number of key informants,

mostly residents from different migrant settlements in Khulna, who have been

essential for easing up my field work tasks. Particularly Zinnat Ara from Rupsha

Char, Shamsunnahar from Matiakhali and Kader Sardar from Runner Math have

been the most cooperative in the ways they have helped me access these informal

settlements and find the appropriate personnel and households for my research. I must

also thank the UPPRP office in Khulna, Bangladesh and particularly Toslima Khatun

(SIA) for letting me access their information, guiding me to and through the

appropriate places and introducing me to the right people – all of which proved most

useful eventually.

Words are not enough to describe my family’s contribution not only to my PhD but

also toward my academic career so far. The family members’ inspiration and

encouragement to pursue the academic path have remained the key driving force for

me. This translated into their selfless support and understanding of my particular way

of life over the years. My parents always wanted me to attain the highest academic

ranks, and they did everything possible to make it into a reality. They have continued

to look after my wife and our two children, particularly during the stretch of months

when I had to be away from home. It is also during these times, my brother Sheikh

Munirul Hakim, although he lives in Dhaka himself, continued to extend his mental

vi

and financial support to my wife and children every occasion I needed him to.

Although younger than me, he had become my guardian angel during these long

demanding years. Another of my cousins, Shaikh Motiur Rahman, who although a

busy government office himself, kept taking care of many of my interests back home

while I was away. My family members tried their best to fill in the vacuum I left for

my wife and kids.

Finally, I must thank the one person, who has been the constant source of confidence

in my life. Shaila, my wife, has remained the sole inspiration throughout my entire

married (hence professional) life. Whether in Singapore or in Bangladesh, or whether

present physically or virtually, she has been always there for me even if it has

generally been the contrary from my end. She kept the house, single-parented my kids

while I was absent, took care of their schooling and medical needs, and still found

some time everyday to keep me assured that everything was all right. One does not

thank his/her loved ones in Bangladeshi culture; I would not do that either. Instead, it

is through this writing, I would rather convey my unrelenting appreciations and

deepest of gratefulness toward her for whatever she has done for me to help me

become what I have become till date.

Finally, it is the so-called ‘slum-dwellers’, or ‘once-migrants’ as I have continued to

call them in my research, whom I am grateful to above all else. I am still uncertain of

the level of contribution my research is going to make. But whatever that has been

achieved through this research, it must remain profoundly indebted to these so called

‘poor’ who gave me their precious time, sacrificed their privacy by letting me in and

hence allowed me to explore the socio-political richness of their built environment.

The amount of cordiality and help I have come to receive from each of these migrant

families, and their intent for participating in my interviews made my task easier than I

could ever expect. I cannot but feel privileged for getting this opportunity to work and

vii

get related with a number of these people who represent the bulk of Khulna’s urban

population. This, I believe, has remained one of the most significant achievements in

my life.

All praise for Allah almighty for everything I was bestowed upon till today.

viii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Declaration ii

Acknowledgements iii

Table of contents viii

Summary xiii

List of Tables xv

List of Figures xvi

Glossary of Terms xx

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Introduction 1

1.2 Background 3

1.3 Problem statement 5

1.4 Operationalized terminologies 7

1.5 The broad question and objectives 9

1.6 Scopes and limitations 9

1.7 Significance of research 11

1.8 Contributions from research 12

1.9 Research framework 12

1.10 Structure of dissertation 14

Chapter 2: Literature review and conceptual framework

2.1 Introduction 15

2.2 Preliminary literature review framework 15

2.2.1 Bangladesh and Khulna 17

2.2.2 Population displacement and urbanization 21

2.2.3 Slums and informal settlements 24

ix

2.2.3.1 Informality 29

2.2.3.2 Subaltern studies 33

2.2.3.3 Assemblage 37

2.2.3.4 Settlement process 39

2.2.4 Migrancy and built environment 46

2.3 Summary: threads and gaps in knowledge 52

2.4 Conceptual framework: justification 54

2.5 The social construction of home: a review of literature 57

2.6 Privacy, control and territoriality 68

2.7 Control and the social construction of home: the framework 76

Chapter 3: Methodology

3.1 Introduction 78

3.2 Research questions 78

3.3 Research location 82

3.4 Settlement selection and settlement types 84

3.5 Research considerations 87

3.5.1 Context of research method 87

3.5.2 Strategy: combination of synchronic and diachronic 88

3.5.3 Types and levels of settlements 88

3.5.4 Assessing spatio-physical to understand socio-political 90

3.5.5 A perspective from below 90

3.6 Research population and sampling design 91

3.6.1 Permanent migrant as subject 91

3.6.2 Units of analysis and sampling quantum 92

3.7 Data collection: strategy and tools 93

3.7.1 Literature review 94

3.7.2 Life history and everyday life 94

x

3.7.3 Mapping and architectural drawings 95

3.7.4 Community-level group discussion 96

3.7.5 Key informant interview 97

3.8 Data analysis and interpretation 97

3.8.1 Settlement morphology (history) 98

3.8.2 Behavioural regularities in everyday life 99

3.8.3 Social world analysis 100

3.9 Study framework 101

Chapter 4: Urban form in Khulna

4.1 Introduction 103

4.2 Modern doctrines of transformation 104

4.2.1 Bengal under East India Company (1757-1947) 104

4.2.2 Bengal under British Raj (1858-1947) 109

4.2.3 Bengal as East Pakistan (1947-1970) 110

4.2.4 Post-liberation Bangladesh (1972-mid 1980s) 116

4.2.5 Post-SAP Bangladesh (1990-present) 120

4.3 Summary 125

Chapter 5: Settlement history and spatial practices

5.1 Introduction 127

5.2 History of settlement 128

5.2.1 History of tenure 128

- Freehold 128

- Registered leasehold 131

- Public rental 134

- De facto secure tenure 136

- Official recognition 145

- Land rental 154

xi

- Use rights 156

5.2.2 Threads of themes: settlement tenure, control & spatial boundaries 162

5.2.3 Problem with categorization 163

5.3 Spatial practices and control of boundaries 167

5.3.1 ‘Everyday’ spatial occupation and personalization 167

5.3.1.1 Personal space and primary territory 167

5.3.1.2 Territorial practice and public territories 169

5.3.1.3 Boundaries between settlement and outside world 173

5.3.2 Need for territorialization 177

5.3.2.1 Contextual aspirations 178

5.3.2.2 Facilitate incremental growth 181

5.3.2.3 Income generation 183

5.3.2.4 Social gains (renting) 188

5.3.3 Dynamics of territorial boundary 192

5.4 Decision-making 195

5.4.1 Actors 195

5.4.2 Rules 197

5.4.3 Territorial hierarchy 202

5.4.4 Decision-making structure 204

5.5 Summary: threads of themes 208

Chapter 6: Scarcity, control and negotiations

6.1 Introduction 211

6.2 Three workings of scarcity 212

6.2.1 Scarcity as a ‘constructed condition’ 213

6.2.2 Scarcity as a ‘political tool’ for validation 216

6.2.2.1 The ‘politics of in-between-ness’ 217

6.2.2.2 The ‘politics of control’ 222

xii

6.2.2.3 The ‘politics of infrastructure’ 225

6.2.3 Scarcity or alternative materiality: ‘density’ question revisited 227

6.2.3.1 Benefit from ‘crowding’ 230

6.2.3.2 Obscured boundaries 232

6.2.3.3 Spatial compromises 233

6.2.3.4 ‘Becoming’ brick-by-brick 237

6.2.3.5 Redundancy and micro-adaptability 238

6.2.3.6 Less is more 240

6.2.4 Scarcity under modernity: the urbanism of negotiations 242

6.3 Home and scarcity 246

6.3.1 Everyday negotiation 246

6.3.2 Compromised boundary 248

6.3.3 Re-construction of Samaj 250

6.3.4 The Home-Scarcity framework 253

6.4 Conclusion 254

6.5 Scopes for further work 256

Bibliography 259

Appendix 275

xiii

SUMMARY

This research aims to understand rural-to-urban migrants’ home-making processes in

a mid-sized third world city. The subjects are the ‘successful’ city-living migrants,

who, once homeless in their rural place of origin, could actually accomplish some

form of ownership of land or dwelling after migrating to the city. The underlying

processes of ‘acquiring and maintaining ownership’ become particularly interesting

under post-WWII modernist conditions in the third world industrializing cities, as

both public and private formal sectors grossly failed to deliver housing for these sheer

volume of migrant populations. Here, the primary question remains, “What socio-

spatial mechanisms explain once homeless rural migrants’ re-making of home in the

city?”

Depending on literature review, while drawing empirical evidences from Khulna,

Bangladesh, this research explores both social and spatio-physical processes

underlying ordinary migrants’ home-making efforts. It hence begins with a

‘deductive’ stance and proposes a conceptual framework. Using this, it seeks to

explain the socio-spatial control mechanisms – the essential constituent of ‘home’,

underlying migrants’ dwelling environments. A two-part study is designed, in which

a review of available secondary information on Khulna’s urban spatial transformation

is carried out first. This shows that ordinary migrants’ home-making (hence urban

form) has historically been subject to the influence of often detrimental top-down

policies. What began with British colonization of Bengal in 1757, it shows that land

(and related economic) policies for a predominantly agrarian society have till now

continued to negatively affect the home-making of rural peasant and the city-living

peasant-turned-migrant. Land scarcity has often been deliberately constructed and

maintained by the elitist regimes (e.g. governments, affluent class) for fulfilling their

own politico-economic objectives and hence controlling the masses. In that, binary

xiv

concepts (e.g. formal-informal, legal-illegal) have become frequently used categories

to define rural-migrants’ socio-spatial status and practices.

The second part of the study – an in-depth architectural-biographic account of 34

households and neighbourhood tissues across 10 migrant-settlements show otherwise.

Using the same conceptual framework, it shows that permanent migrants living in

Khulna’s ‘informal’ and ‘illegal’ ‘slums’ and ‘squatters’ have devised for themselves

‘alternative’ socio-spatial practices that compensate for their scarceness of space and

resources. Space-making by various negotiation of socio-spatial boundaries have over

the years become customary, where these practices have all been based on openness,

flexibility, adjustments and manipulations of the available; in no way these conform

to the ‘standard’ or ‘formal’, yet help them cope with urban contingencies.

Using a more ‘inductive’ stance, findings from these two parts are synthesized, while

Scarcity – a second theoretical thread becomes apparent. The concept of Scarcity

hence seeks to explain how under ‘modern’ conditions the various formally-defined

conditions (e.g. illegality or informality) have been dealt with by the migrants’

everyday socio-spatial acts of negotiation. It is here that all involved parties continue

to play with socio-spatial control mechanisms as a number of socio-spatial

compromises and adaptations are made in the processes. This is how, this research

suggests, the more ‘successful’ amongst the migrants could actually make home in

the city and ensure a sustained stay. The ‘scarcity-control-negotiation’ framework, it

suggests, provides an alternative way of viewing this particular sort of ‘urbanism’,

only to be further tested and refined against other similar contexts.

Keywords: Rural-to-urban migrant, home, control, negotiation, scarcity, urban form

xv

LIST OF TABLES

Chapter 1

Table 1.1 Research contribution 12

Table 1.2 Chapter objectives and chapter arrangement in the

dissertation

14

Chapter 2

Table 2.1 Literature review framework 17

Table 2.2 A typology of slums 39

Table 2.3 A classification of land tenure types 43

Table 2.4 A classification of informal tenure types 44

Table 2.5 Indicators for ‘architectural patterns of displacement’ 48

Table 2.6 Indicators for ‘architecture-migrancy’ pairing 51

Table 2.7 Threads and gaps in knowledge 52

Chapter 3

Table 3.1 Study framework for proposed research 102

Chapter 4

Table 4.1 Moments of scarcity and urban form (1972-1990) 117

Table 4.2 Moments of scarcity for urban poor and urban form: post-

SAP Bangladesh

122

Chapter 5

Table 5.1 Threads of themes: settlement tenure, control and spatial

boundaries

162

Table 5.2 Settlements and influential actors involved 196

Table 5.3 Threads and themes from primary data analysis 208

xvi

LIST OF FIGURES

Chapter 1

Figure 1.1 Actual population in Chandigarh 1998; informal settlements

in 2000

6

Figure 1.2 Disciplinary affiliation of research 10

Figure 1.3 Research framework 13

Chapter 2

Figure 2.1 A typology of informal settlement locations 41

Figure 2.2 Relation between Privacy, Control and Territory 55

Figure 2.3 The “Social Phenomenology” framework 62

Figure 2.4 Conceptual model 77

Chapter 3

Figure 3.1 Problem statement in graphics 80

Figure 3.2 Khulna in relation to Bangladesh and India; administrative

boundaries of Khulna

82

Figure 3.3 Present Khulna characterized by mosaic-like distribution of

‘poor’ migrant settlements within formal developments

83

Figure 3.4 KCC jurisdiction map 85

Figure 3.5 Growth of migrant settlements 86

Figure 3.6 Correlation between ‘social’ and ‘spatial’ in the analysis of

collected data

98

Figure 3.7 Interrelation between various dimensions of temporality 100

Figure 3.8 A typology of informal relationships 101

Chapter 4

Figure 4.1 Khulna urban-form: pre-colonial and under EIC 107

Figure 4.2 BIWTA rest-house built on the remains of Mr. Charlie’s

residence and office; Colonia-influenced house owned by

Mr. Shailen Ghosh

108

Figure 4.3 Khulna Master Plan 1961; Khulna under British Raj 113

Figure 4.4 Khulna urban-form: post-1971; post-1990 to present 121

Chapter 5

Figure 5.1 Location of Motiakhali area; built-form distribution in space 129

Figure 5.2 Mr. Ziarul’s house plan in Motiakhali; photograph showing 131

xvii

Mr. Ziarul’s house and rented Katcha units

Figure 5.3 Location of Runner Math; built-form distribution in space 132

Figure 5.4 Location of Railway Guard’s Colony ; built-form

distribution in space

134

Figure 5.5 Typical ‘row-house’ unit transformation in Railway Guard’s

Colony; single storey row-house like arrangement of

Railway employee’s housing; fencing used to mark property

line as in private estates; ‘informal house’ on Railways land

inhibited by outsiders

135

Figure 5.6 Location of Rupsha Char Bastee; built-form distribution in

space

137

Figure 5.7 Settlement transformation phases in Rupsha Char Bastee 138

Figure 5.8 Actual location of Rupsha Char Bastee, with the riverside

Ghats, shrimp industries and other enterprises along the

riverside on its right; (left) same area as projected on KDA’s

Master Plan 2002

139

Figure 5.9 Location of Panch No. Ghat settlement; built-form

distribution in space (location of Harijan-para is seen on the

north of settlement 3); satellite image

141

Figure 5.10 Location of Sath No. Camp; built-form distribution in space 144

Figure 5.11 Two Bangali-owned houses within Bihari refugee camp 145

Figure 5.12 Location of Bakkar Bastee; built-form distribution in space 147

Figure 5.13 Bakkar Bastee: (1) location of TDP office; (2) houses on

encroached lakeside land under control of Mr. Bakkar and

his associates; (3) newer lakeside encroachments by other

people; (middle) building under construction within the TDP

office compound; (right) lakeside view of TDP office, and

lakeside encroachments

149

Figure 5.14 Location of People’s Panch Tala; built-form distribution in

space

151

Figure 5.15 Panoramic view of People’s Panch Tala showing buildings

and spaces

153

Figure 5.16 Location of Quaium Shaheb er Gola; built-form distribution

in space

155

Figure 5.17 Panoramic view of Quaium Shaheb er Gola showing

buildings and spaces

156

xviii

Figure 5.18 Location of Vastuhara; built-form distribution in space 157

Figure 5.19 Three plans showing three different realities of Vastuhara;

remains of one of the first Katcha house prototype; photos of

Mr. Dipu and the pond on area 3, which he is lease-holding

159

Figure 5.20 Land allotment slip given to Vastuhara residents in 1977; a

meeting proceeding from 15 April 2011; Vastuhara

institutional buildings

165

Figure 5.21 Personal space and primary territory 168

Figure 5.22a Territorial analysis 1 170

Figure 5.22b Territorial analysis 2 and 3 171

Figure 5.23 Christian group’s claimed area within settlement; Christian

migrant’s building on the grey-water pond

172

Figure 5.24 Village forming around Vastuhara’s south and west

periphery; vacant land on Runner Math; and, high boundary

wall with barbed wire on the western boundary of settlement

2

174

Figure 5.25 Boundary condition of the studied settlements 175

Figure 5.26 Non-dwelling and non-commercial functions within

settlements; locations of religious buildings

176

Figure 5.27 Houses where both landlord and tenants live alongside 180

Figure 5.28 Village-like spatio-physical organization of households 180

Figure 5.29 Datum-like structures; phases of physical transformation of

dwelling units; adjacent plots purchased and built on

182

Figure 5.30 Households with various income generating activities 185

Figure 5.31 Institutional buildings and income generation spaces 187

Figure 5.32 Negotiated territorial boundary 192

Figure 5.33 Norms of building practices 198

Figure 5.34 Rules and norms of construction 200

Figure 5.35 Add-ons as building norms 201

Figure 5.36 Customary spatial/building practices 202

Figure 5.37 Landlord’s territory, tenants’ territory and negotiated

territory

203

Figure 5.38 Community leaders’ household spaces compared 205

Figure 5.39 Decision-making structures of migrant settlements 206

xix

Chapter 6

Figure 6.1 Typical ‘Land Allotment Slip’ for Vastuhara; brick-built

house with wooden floor and CI sheet roof

219

Figure 6.2 Compromised control mechanisms 224

Figure 6.3 Infrastructure politics 226

Figure 6.4 Settlement 10 – building 1 undergoing renovation works

overseen by building representatives from Mayor’s party and

of his same regional origin; ex-office building is claimed by

the same supporters, to be used as ‘clubhouse’

232

Figure 6.5 Shared functional space leading to social exchange between

landlord and her tenants in settlement 5; territorial

encroachment of public street during dry seasons; spiritual

corner in ‘bed room’ space in settlement 3

233

Figure 6.6 NGO signboard describing the nature of their involvement in

settlement 5; house interior transformed to workspace for

producing export-oriented commodities

235

Figure 6.7 Two adjacent ‘formal’ plots of land stitched together to form

a single plot in settlement 6; house accommodates

community school in settlement 6; transformation of

dwelling unit according to changing situations

239

Figure 6.8 Less is more – examples of spatial management instead of

newer constructions

241

Figure 6.9 The home-scarcity framework 253

xx

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

A

ADB Asian Development Bank

B

BAL Bangladesh Awami League – one of the two main

political parties in Bangladesh. It is credited for its key

role in liberating Bangladesh from Pakistan during

Bangladesh’s War of Independence in 1971

Bangali People who are ethnically from the region of Bengal

(within Indian Subcontinent) and whose primary

language is Bangla

Bapari/Mahajan Traditional trader/merchant class who became wealthy

after being appointed by the British East India Company

during colonial times for supplying raw materials and

marketing mainland European products

Bari Although often denotes to the physical house, it indicates

to a sense of rootedness and closely resembles the

western notion of ‘home’

Bariwala Literally meaning ‘the house-owner’

Barrios In all Spanish-speaking Latin American nations, these

are dense settlements and dilapidated building structures

built on steep mountainsides, having socio-physical

conditions akin to ‘slums’

Basha Literally meaning nest, referring to the transience and

temporary-ness associated with urban lives

Bastee Derived from the root bashati, meaning a place for

human living; however, in Bangla it is curiously used to

designate similar places such as slums

Bastee-bashi People who live in a Bastee

Bengal Refers to the Mid- and South-Eastern deltaic locations of

the undivided Indian subcontinent – formed at and

around the estuarine confluence of the great Ganges-

Brahmaputra river system. This area, following the

partition between India and Pakistan in 1947 was again

xxi

divided into two separate provinces for these two nations

assuming the names West-Bengal and East- Pakistan

respectively. Following a bloody war, East-Pakistan got

liberated from Pakistan in 1971, which now is known as

Bangladesh

Bhadralok The westernized Indians who since the 1820s started

acquiring their education based on English language and

emulate English culture, and had served the colonial

machine accordingly

Bigha A local unit for land area measurement;

1 Bigha = 1340m2, or 14,400sft

Bihari A particular refugee groups originating from the Indian

state of Bihar

BIWTA Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority

BNP Bangladesh Nationalist Party, one of the two main

political parties in Bangladesh formed by President Zia

(an ex-Army General and one of the key sector

commanders during Bangladesh’s War of Independence

in 1971). Zia’s tenure saw Bangladesh’s first Martial

Law (army-backed government), but also an

unprecedented development drive not seen in post-

independence Bangladesh before

BRAC One of the largest NGOs in Bangladesh and in the world

C

Camp and Colony Derived primarily from English, these are two local

expressions referring mainly to refugee settlements and

low income government-funded housing areas

respectively

CDC Community Development Committee – community sub-

groups formed by a small groups of inhabitants from

informal settlements; mainly composed of female

members, CDC structure is designed by the UNDP-led

UPPRP project

Char Low-lying lands that are formed on the river edge due to

siltation

xxii

CI sheet Corrugated Iron sheet – the most popular roof and wall

material now a day for low income population groups

CSS Christian Service Society

CUS Center for Urban Studies

D

Dalil Formal title deed

Desh A word meaning both country and countryside,

signifying a sense of belonging through a bond with the

land (either a nation or a particular region or locality)

Deshi Of or from desh

Deshi manush Kinship networks, e.g. family members, friends or even

known persons from same regional origin

E

EIC East India Company

F

Favelas In Brazil, these are similar low income settlements as the

Barrios

FGD Focused group discussion

Freedom Fighter (Muktijoddha in Bangla) refers to those civilian

personnel who fought against the Pakistan Army during

Bangladesh’s War of Liberation in 1971. The term

Freedom Fighter, which has an emotional connotation,

however is also used in Bangladesh to gain financial and

political (read ‘unfair’) advantages

G

GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

Gecekondu Literally means “it happened at night” in Turkish – low

income settlements that consist of both slum-like and

consolidated forms of housing environment

Ghar The physical house/dwelling unit in Bangla

Ghat Loading-unloading quay

GIS Geographic information system

Godown Government-owned silo for storing food grains

Gola A privately owned depot (e.g. for firewood)

Goli Narrow ‘public’ alleyways

xxiii

H

Haat A temporary marketplace that usually takes place on two

particular days in a week (as in open-markets in Europe)

Harijan A lower caste Hindu population group usually engaged

in works such as cleaners or sweepers

HBE Home-based enterprise

Hukou A Chinese ‘internal’ VISA system

I

Imam Bara Shia Muslim’s religious shrine containing a symbolic

grave of their religious leader

IMF International Monetary Fund

IOM International Organization for Migration

ISI Import Substitution Industrialization – a post-WWII

economic policy targeting especially the developing

nations, advocating for the replacement of major

consumer imports by promoting their domestic industries

(textiles, household appliances etc.) aided by protective

tariffs and quotas to help new/infant industries

J

Jotedar Rich raiyats who held large chunks of rural land through

long-term lease from the city-living absentee Zamindar

Jute Mills Suffix used for any jute industry in Bangladesh

K

Kampong Village-like settlements in South-East Asia; also refers to

informal living places such as slums

Katcha Non-permanent houses

KCC Khulna City Corporation – the public agency headed by

elected Mayor and represented by 31 Ward Councillors

in the city of Khulna, Bangladesh; it is responsible for

collecting local holding taxes and provisioning all urban

services (e.g. roads, drainage, sewerages etc.) but not

utilities (e.g. electricity)

KDA Khulna Development Authority – responsible for

Khulna’s spatial planning and physical development.

KDA operates under the direction of central government,

xxiv

and is headed by appointed bureaucrats or army officials.

KDA has a higher statutory power to control larger areas

than KCC and thus greater scope to plan and implement

projects that directly influence the physical growth of

Khulna

Khas land Central government-owned ‘public’ land, intended to be

leased for both agricultural and non-agricultural

purposes. The most eligible for Khas land are the

landless poor, and other significant contributors

(persons/groups/institutes) to society and/or economy

L

LGED Local Government Engineering Department

LPUPAP Local Partnerships for Urban Poverty Alleviation Project

M

Maath Playground or any public open field

Madrasah Muslim religious school

Mandir Hindu temple

Manush Person or people

Marwari Rich immigrant businessmen from Rajasthan

Mastan Mafia boss or violent person

Mathbar Rural community leader

MNC Multinational Company

Mughal The most influential Muslim rulers of the Indian

Subcontinent

Muktijoddha See Freedom Fighter earlier

Murubbi Community/family elder

Muslin A high-quality cotton-based fabric produced by East-

Bengal weavers that were worn even by the European

royalty

N

Nagor Town or township

Neta Leader (political)

NHA National Housing Authority

O

OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and

Development

xxv

P

Panchayet Traditional community-borne body of social elites

responsible for community-level decision-making and

dispute resolutions – an ‘imported’ concept from North

India

Para (As in Harijan-para), a suffix denoting a particular space

and place (usually in villages) where a particular group

of professional people (e.g. weavers, fishermen) reside

PRSP Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper

Pucca Any construction that makes use of permanent materials

R

Raiyat Cultivator peasants in undivided India, who were mostly

Muslims

REHAB Real Estate and Housing Association of Bangladesh

RMG Readymade garment (industries)

S

Samaj The social setting of which one’s ‘Bari’ is part of;

literally meaning ‘society’, in the Bangladeshi context

Samaj implies more ‘a community’ – an immediate

social milieu constituted primarily by neighbours,

relatives, friends and deshi manush within a larger socio-

spatial setting

SAP Structural Adjustment Program – restructuring economy

and reducing government intervention as part of a

Neoliberal market expansion policy. SAP policies

include currency devaluation, managed balance of

payments, reduction of government services through

public spending cuts/budget deficit cuts, reducing tax on

high earners, reducing inflation, wage suppression,

privatization, lower tariffs on imports and tighter

monetary policy, increased free trade, cuts in social

spending, and business deregulation. Third world

governments were also encouraged (read forced) to

reduce their role in public spending by privatizing state-

owned industries – including the health sector, and

xxvi

opening up their economies to foreign competition

Sardar Labour leader

SPGRC Stranded Pakistanis General Repatriation Committee

T

TDP Town defence party

Thana Smallest administrative jurisdiction in Bangladesh

U

UN United Nations

Unnayan Development

UNDP United Nations Development Program

Upazila Alternative name for the smallest administrative

jurisdiction in Bangladesh

UPPRP Urban Partnerships for Poverty Reduction Project

V

Vaidya A traditional river-faring snake charmer nomad group

Veri Bandh Embankment or dyke

Vita Literally plinth; but allegorically it refer to the ‘root’ or

‘anchorage’ where one originates from; is the piece of

land, often ancestral, on which ‘Ghar’ is grounded

W

Ward Councillor Selected public representatives from each of KCC’s 31

administrative wards

Waaz Open-air Islamic program

WB World Bank

WTO World Trade Organization

WWII World War 2

Y

Yatimkhana A residential facility (generally for orphan boys) that

occurs simultaneously with an educational institute

Z

Zamin Land

Zamindar &

Zamindari

To raise revenue base for EIC, a new breed of land

revenue collectors selected from elite Hindu families;

Zamindari refers to the land constituency under a

Zamindar’s control

1

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Introduction

Humans are perhaps one of those species which is capable of making itself ‘at home’

by negotiating with almost any condition of extremity, dearth and nothingness. This

has always fascinated me. Raised in a typically third world urban society, and having

a background of working in and studying on the urban slums (Bastee as they are

called locally), I have had numerous encounters of varying degrees with these

spatialities and the inhabitants who live there (Bastee-bashi in Bangla). As numerous

socio-anthropological accounts of urban slums across continents and times suggest

(e.g. Gans 1962; Perlman 1976; Neuwirth 2005; Nijman 2010), these places of the

poor, or more specifically those of the migrant poor, are often places of hope, of

production, of refuge and retreat, and above all, places of residence amid many

extremities. I have always wondered about the socio-spatial processes through which

these migrant poor, once homeless and resource-less in their rural places of origin,

still manage to re-make home in the city. Coming from an architectural background, I

have remained interested in finding out how do various shortages and lacks coupled

with volatile tenure status go on to produce useful forms, spaces and eventually

communities. This personal urge has been further strengthened by a few numbers as

they follow.

Globally, urban population increased around 800% to 1200% during years 1950-

2007, compared with a rural growth of 100% to 300% during the same period. In less

developed nations, compared with a mere 18% in 1950, currently 44% of their entire

population is urban. It has been rural to urban migration above all that has contributed

to such phenomenal growth (UN 2008: 7). It is widely believed that mass rural-urban

migration during these post-WWII decades was instigated mainly by the top-down

western policies, which promoted the ideas of modernization and industrialization for

2

the developing nations (Leys 2005). Slums and urban ‘informal settlements’ have

since continued to proliferate in the cities of these nations, and have remained the

most occurring form of accommodation/housing option for these ‘urban poor’

constituted primarily by these migrant populations (Neuwirth 2005; Dovey 2012).

This trend, however, remains ever-mounting; UN-HABITAT (2007) suggests that by

2030, slum-dwelling population in the world would double and reach 2 billion. Yet,

in the gross failure of third world governments in housing provisioning, and in the

dominance of an elite-oriented housing market there, these so called slums have

‘somehow’ continued to become more permanent in a “brick-by-brick” manner

(Peattie 1999: 137). This is also what my PhD is about. Simply speaking, the aim

here is to understand the home-making processes by these ‘successful’ permanent

migrants living in the selected third world city’s many slums, squatters and informal

locations. By using the term ‘successful’, I refer particularly to those migrants who

despite their dubious tenure status1 and without any formal sector support have still

managed some sense of ownership and possession of a piece of land, or of a dwelling

unit or both. For having a focus on ownership process, this research therefore

explores migrants’ spatial control mechanisms at the different levels of his/her

dwelling environments. It hence maintains reference with the underlying socio-

political processes that helped migrants acquire and maintain land- and/or house-

ownership in their efforts to becoming permanent in the city. These mechanisms and

processes are further assessed in relation with ‘scarcity’ – a constructed condition

under modernity, which this research argues, has been used by both poor migrants

and elitist actors to fulfil their own politico-economic-spatial objectives.

1. As illustrated in the literature review (Chapter 2), most of the slums and squatter

settlements in which these migrants reside have either illegal or unresolved tenure status.

3

1.2 Background

This research is premised on these observations and also on a contextual analysis of

the conditions arising in Khulna (Hakim 2009) - a mid-sized city2 in Bangladesh. The

area this research is interested in is the permanent rural-urban migrants’ home-

making in Khulna, centred on a number of low income settlement types produced

during the post-WWII decades when Khulna’s urban form experienced significant

spatio-physical transformation. These decades are also of particular interest since it is

during this period of time when the government’s role in delivering important

constituents of home-making (e.g. land and/or dwelling) had been systematically

reduced by market(profit)-oriented policy thinking. Hype for modernization and

industrialization enticed the national think-tank during this period, while alternative

forms of socio-political (and formal) agencies3 emerged by replacing many

traditional ones. To further clarify the broad assumption that ordinary people produce

their ‘own physical environment’ in their ‘own informal ways’ by using their ‘own

means’, this study seeks to look at the production and control of migrants’ spatio-

physical environments in relation with the socio-political contribution from all social

actors/agents4 including members of their own communities. This socio-spatial

mechanism, that often takes advantage of the in-between-ness of the informal-formal

or illegal-legal dilemma and hence explains the aforesaid conclusive model, has not

been properly understood in the study of ordinary built environments (discussed

2. Cohen (2004: 25) argues that “most urban growth over the next 25 years will not take

place in mega-cities at all but will occur in far smaller cities and towns”. UN (2008: 15)

also confirms that it is the medium-sized cities (with populations >5million but

<1million) in which the second highest number of people (23% of overall global

population; most will be in the smaller towns) are expected to reside by year 2025.

3. Agency “is the capability, the power, to be the source and originator of acts; agents (or

actors) are the subjects of action, deployed in debates over the relationship between

individuals and social structure...(and) pertain...to the nature of individual consciousness,

its ability to constitute and reconstitute itself, and...the extent of its freedom from exterior

determination” (Rapport and Overing 2003: 1).

4. This has been stressed by Keivani and Werna (2001: 69) in their work on the Modes of

housing provision in developing countries that “systems or modes of housing provision

can be defined by the processes through which such provision is achieved...based on the

identification of social relations and interactions of agents involved in all aspects of

housing provision, i.e. production, exchange and consumption”.

4

elaborately in Chapter 2). The need to realizing, and the intention to contributing to

this knowledge niche is what inspires this research.

The proposition, on which this problem statement is based on, hence is that the built

environment may be seen as a product of many forms of interaction between various

actors or agents inhabiting it (Habraken 1998: 28). Thus interactions take place

between agents irrespective of social class in order to control spaces. As in the

context of Khulna, the home- (and land-)less peasant, who once migrated and started

living here permanently hence symbolizes a very important agent since they

constitute more than one-third of the entire urban population (CUS-UNDP-KCC

2011). Ironically, most of the peasant-turned-migrant worker – the essential

component of ‘market triumph’, has still remained a homeless subject in the city.

Neither governments, nor the proponents of the market (e.g. industrialists, foreign

donors, NGOs etc.) had to offer any mechanism to reinstate the migrant into any

(sense of) home. Therefore, in order to make home and attain a sense of permanence,

the migrants had (and still have) to engage into interactions with agents mostly higher

in terms of social class, power and authority. Interaction between them as such is

what determines the spatial control mechanisms and hence the physical form of

Khulna’s migrant settlements. Traditionally, these higher-level agents were

represented by community level elite-bodies or socio-economically influential

individuals. Later, as ‘modern’ public sector agencies such as KDA and KCC5 were

formed, many of the traditional agents were replaced.

5. KDA (Khulna Development Authority) is formed in 1961 to manage spatial planning and

physical development of Khulna. KDA works under the central government and headed

by appointed bureaucrats. In contrast, Khulna municipality was heightened to the rank of

Khulna City Corporation (KCC) in 1984. Its jurisdiction is divided into 31 administrative

wards. KCC is headed by an elected Mayor while its 31 wards are represented by elected

representatives. The main task of KCC is to deliver services, and collect holding and

utility taxes, with very little power to control the physical development of Khulna

(Ahmed 2003). KDA, on the other hand, has the statutory power to control larger areas

than KCC and thus greater scope to plan and implement projects that directly influence

its physical growth. Although a severe co-ordination problem persists, roles of both KDA

and KCC still remain vital with regard to the building practice of migrants.

5

However, as none of the formal/public-sector actors was successful in delivering

migrants the most important ingredient of home-making - i.e. land (tenure), migrants

still managed some form of ownership (although informal and illegal mostly) using

his/her own personal relation, much in a way of a patron-client, with higher-level

agents constituted largely by local political leaders related to KCC, businessmen,

social elites, religious bodies, NGOs etc. The processes involved in getting land for

house building, permanent construction of buildings, or illegal squatting of

government land – had all been benefitted by this key socio-political relationship. A

constant process of reciprocity – a situation, in which both ordinary migrant and the

elite are mutually benefitted considering their own intents, has always underscored

this relationship.

1.3 Problem statement

Ideally, a typically modern democratic city’s built environment can be viewed as a

product of the interaction between rule-making (and implementing) bodies and

people on the receiving end. How ‘things’ are usually ‘done’ in the developed world

cities hence remains simple. Both public sector and formal private sector decide what

and how things (e.g. housing) are to be constructed and delivered, while the citizens,

although through greater participation, conform to (and eventually consume) what is

being decided. The respective roles of the formal sectors and the citizen do not

change much. This model thus remains largely linear. Compared to this, affairs in

third world cities are rather curious. Albeit ‘modern’ in the way these cities seem to

operate, rules seldom take effect. It is also here the public/formal-sector agencies

grossly fail to perform the roles they are supposed to perform in conceiving,

producing and delivering housing6. ‘Paper plans’ and ‘shadow governments’ remain

6. Keivani and Werna (2001: 66) informs that less than 10% of the total housing stock is

actually delivered by third world governments; this includes all sorts of provisioning,

chief amongst which are housing for public servants, middle-class housing and low-

income housing (excluding housing for the lowest-income groups or homeless people).

6

plenty but lacking validity and legitimacy altogether. Yet, even amongst this absence

and failure of the ‘formal’, the most ordinary of the citizen still devise ways to get

access to dwelling and/or land as outlined previously. Such ‘informal’ places of

residence can even be found amongst the most planned of grids as in ‘third world’

Chandigarh (Figure 1.1). Informalization has also been reported in the depiction of

Brazilianization by James Holston (1989: 289-313).

In these societies as in Khulna, through what processes then this formal-informal co-

existence continues to grow and mature? How does, for example, a poor migrant get

access to land or dwelling in the sheer absence of public-provisioning during the

modern times? What may be the alternative models for explaining such ownership of

an ‘informal’ residence compared with the ‘linear delivery model’ of modern

Western societies? How are these material lacks compensated and through what

socio-spatial-economic practices? Is there any particular ‘element of common

interest’ that makes all the actors assume a negotiated stance? What role these

Figure 1.1: (Left): actual population in Chandigarh 1998. (Right): informal settlements in

2000 – red circles show the existing slums and the dark dots show homeless squatters’

locations (Source: Sarin 2009: 111).

7

different actors/agents play in this compensation process? What are the spatio-

physical outcomes of these processes at the different levels of the urban form?

1.4 Operationalized terminologies

The following terminologies frequently appear throughout this research. Unless

otherwise re-defined, the associated definitions and explanation should be used rather

as ‘working definitions’ for these terminologies as used here.

Migrant and migration: the term migrant applies to persons, and family members,

moving to another country or region for the betterment of their material or social

conditions and improve the prospect for themselves or their family at origin (IOM

2004: 40).

Migration refers to a process of population movement either across an international

border or within a state. It encompasses any kind of movement of people, whatever

its length (permanent, temporary, circular etc.), composition and causes and includes

migration of refugees, displaced persons, uprooted people, and economic migrants

(Ibid: 41). Internal migration refers to movements of people from one area of a

country to another “for the purpose or with the effect of establishing a new

residence”. Internal migrants move but remain within their country of origin. Rural to

urban (rural-urban) migration is one form of internal migration (Ibid: 32).

Migrant settlements: refers primarily to the low-income residential locations within

the city, i.e. the city’s slums, squatters and various ‘informal settlements’ where the

permanent rural-urban migrants have been living during the post-WWII decades of

modernization. Although no clear definition is available, ‘migrant settlements’ has

been used in contemporary works without clearly defining it (e.g. Wu 2008).

Generally, migrants can be found living in all the slums, squatters and informal

8

settlements7. But as will be demonstrated in Chapter 2, many settlements both large

and small may also be found that lack the necessary physical and legal attributes to be

qualified as slums, squatters and informal settlements. ‘Migrant settlements’ hence is

used throughout this dissertation as a broader and more ‘generic’ terminology that

encompasses mainly the residential activities of the migrants in the city. A more

detailed critique of the associated concepts (slum, squatter and informal settlements)

is also provided in Chapter 2 by outlining their conceptual shortcomings for this

research. In some occasions in this dissertation, the terms ‘slum’ and ‘informal

settlement’ are used rather interchangeably, but essentially indicating to these

settlements where migrants reside.

Urban form: is an all-encompassing term implying the emergence of form in two or

three dimensions, ranging from the scale of courtyards to cities. It may often be

represented by specific properties (e.g. ‘density’). Urban form may also refer to the

overall size or shape of the urban area, or its degree of articulation into discrete

settlement units (villages, blocks etc.). In this dissertation, urban form refers to the

more ‘zoomed-in’ versions of spaces and forms at the household-settlement level of

low-income migrant settlements. In that, urban form manifests in two associated

concepts; one, built form (implying urban form in three dimensions and at the scale-

level of dwelling units; and two, settlement form (the form of discrete units –

individual migrant settlements or settlement clusters) (Marshall 2005: 696-697).

Home: the idea of ‘home’ can be viewed as a co-construct of three essential

dimensions: (1) Spatial and temporal dimensions: formal structural properties across

diverse geographic scales and time periods; (2) Societal dimensions: ideological,

political and socio-economic factors; and (3) Experiential dimensions: emotions and

7. The Challenge of Slums recognizes various migrants as the residents of slums, but

continue to use ‘slums’ as their places of residence (UN-HABITAT 2003: 10).

9

values related to the residential biography of individuals and households (Lawrence

1995: 58). ‘Home’ is also relative and place-specific. In Bangladesh, the meaning of

‘home’ is rather ambiguous and complex. The Bangla word ‘bari’, although often

denotes the physical house, also indicates to a sense of rootedness, and closely

resembles the western notion of ‘home’. On the other hand, ‘ghar’ denotes the

physical house/dwelling unit(s) built on the ‘vita’, i.e. the piece of land, often

ancestral, on which ‘ghar’ is grounded. ‘Samaj’, however, is the social setting of

which one’s ‘bari’ is part of. To be ‘at home’ means to be part of the ‘samaj’ within a

highly stratified yet ‘connected’ Bangladeshi society (Ghafur 2004: 268).

1.5 The broad question and objectives

The primary question this research asks and seeks to answer is: what socio-spatial

mechanisms explain many homeless rural migrants’ successful re-making of home in

the urban context of Khulna, despite the failures of Governments and formal private

sectors to provide housing for the poor during modernization and industrialization?

The objectives are:

1. To underscore the effects of politics (of land and housing),

production (industrialization) and population (migration) in the

evolution of Khulna’s urban form shaped by modernist policy

thinking.

2. To find out about the permanent migrants’ socio-spatial practices of

territorial control for a sustained ownership of his/her dwelling

environments during these modernization-industrialization decades.

3. To examine the spatio-physical consequences of these various

practices of territorial control particularly at the level of dwelling.

1.6 Scopes and limitations

Disciplinary boundaries are slippery and theoretical discussions on migrants’ home

frequently overlap each other’s domains. This problematizes the question of

10

Figure 1.2: Disciplinary affiliation of research.

Socio-spatial construction of

home under conditions of

modernity

Sociology Geography

Urban planning

Behavioral studies Architecture

Anthropology

Po

st-c

olo

nia

l stu

die

s

Sub

alte

rn s

tud

ies

Info

rmal

ity

Dem

ograp

hy stu

dies

UN

do

cum

ents

Co

un

try stud

ies

disciplinary boundary. In addition, the sheer volume of available scholarly works8

makes the construction of a conceptual framework rather tricky. Yet, in order to

outline a disciplinary boundary for this research, it can be said that works of four

interrelated subject areas have been primarily considered (Figure 1.2). The key

threads of the conceptual framework, i.e. ‘home’, ‘privacy’ ‘territoriality’ and

‘control’ – are drawn and discussed with reference to works done in behavioural

studies, architecture, anthropology and geography. In order to comprehend the socio-

political components of the migrants’ spatio-physical environments, literatures on

post-colonial-studies, subaltern-studies and informality are also cited. These works,

supported by the country-specific

studies on Bangladesh (and

Khulna), the various literary works

on demography (migration,

urbanization, population etc.) and

UN documents (mainly those by

UN and UN-HABITAT) provide

necessary empirical basis for the

formation of the conceptual

framework.

In terms of primary data, socio-political history (morphology) of 10 migrant

settlements has been studied on the basis of their respective tenure types. A total of

89 households are surveyed while amongst them, a representative 34 household-

neighbourhood ‘tissues’ being studied and documented using architectural tools and

techniques. In addition, 10 focussed group discussions have been carried out during a

8. A Google Scholar search on 11 May 2013, using the keywords ‘slum’, ‘squatter’,

‘informal settlements’, ‘housing’ and ‘home’ returned with figures 5,120; 1,780; 1,020;

176,000; and 3,880 for scholarly literatures respectively.

11

three-phased fieldwork (detailed in methodology chapter 3). Another 6 key

informants were also interviewed.

The strength of multi-disciplinarity is also probably the main limitation of this

research. The frequent referencing to non-architectural works/theories from allied

disciplines may sometimes appear unfamiliar to and burdensome for some readers. A

comparative study, with reference to other national and/or international contexts

could have been more useful. And as in most academic research, inclusion of

additional study subjects and quantitative figures would have made generalization of

the identified phenomenon more reliable and consistent.

1.7 Significance of research

Drawing examples from a mid-sized city in Bangladesh, this research demonstrates

how, under modern conditions, the many forms of population displacement

(including rural-urban migration) have contributed to the transformation of urban

spatio-physical environments in transitioning societies. In a time that necessitates the

understanding of the ‘New mobilities paradigm’ and its spatial implications (Sheller

and Urry 2006), this research outlines a particular context and hence aims to grasp the

diversities associated with this context by analyzing its urban physical spaces

(especially the dwelling environments of once-homeless migrants) in relation with the

policy environments across a range of scales.

This research also illustrates how the deliberately constructed and maintained scarcity

of resources (especially land) by influential elitist agents has lead to the creation of a

number of binary conditions (e.g. formal-informal or legal-illegal) historically. The

research further shows how these binary conditions have been exploited by the elitist

actors and successful migrants alike, in order to construct and maintain control over

their individual territories, leaving significant consequences for third world urban

12

form. It also reveals how the material manifestations of these contradictory

coexistences, particularly evident at the many different levels of migrants’ dwelling

environments, have over the years established these environments as critical spatio-

physical sites for socio-political interplays between the ordinary migrant and

authoritative actors – both seeking legitimacy in their own rights.

1.8 Contributions from research

With reference to the levels/areas of contribution, Table 1.1 summarizes the possible

contributions that this research aims to make.

Table 1.1: Research contribution.

Levels/areas Possible contribution Contextual

understanding

- A framework to understand the combined effect of ‘industrialization-

migration-politics’ trinity in the production of built environments in the

transitioning ‘third world’ city

Knowledge,

theories

- Contribution to the literature on ‘home’ by identifying home as a socially

(externally) constructed entity beyond its traditional ‘internal’ focus

- Elaboration of the concept of scarcity in a threefold way; (1) scarcity as a

deliberately constructed backdrop; (2) scarcity as a political tool for

controlling spatial boundaries; and (3) scarcity as an instigator of various

spatial negotiations

- Hinting of a plausible lens called ‘Negotiated Urbanism’ (other than

‘resistance’) in understanding the migrant spaces and their everyday life

Policy,

practice

- Advance the hypothesis by Keivani and Werna (2001: 69) that home-

making, instead of direct physical provisioning, may also be defined by

the processes through which they are achieved. In this case, the processes

entail the various socio-spatial negotiations practiced in response to

scarce conditions, and also the interactions between contextually

significant agents involved in all aspects of the provisioning of home (i.e.

production, delivery, exchange and consumption)

1.9 Research framework

The framework (Figure 1.3: overleaf) phases out the key components for this

research:

13

Figure 1.3: Research framework.

14

1.10 Structure of dissertation

Table 1.2 outlines the organization of the chapters in this dissertation. Objectives for

each of the chapters are followed by brief descriptions of the key themes covered by

each of these chapters.

Table 1.2: Chapter objective and chapter arrangement in the dissertation.

Chapter Objective Description 1 Introduction to the

dissertation

Personal motives; research in brief;

introduction to context; broad questions and

objectives; operationalization of important

terminologies; and research framework

2 Positioning of research

within existing knowledge;

formulation of the

conceptual framing

Literature review; identification of gaps in

present knowledge; proposition of the

conceptual framework; and identification of

key indicators

3 Formulate research

methodology – outlining of

strategies and instruments

Formulation of sub-research questions;

research design; data collection and analysis

methods

4 Assess Khulna’s macro-

level urban spatio-physical

transformation in relation

with various socio-political-

economic dynamics

occurring from modernity

Findings 1: urban spatial transformation in

relation with different migration waves;

modernization-inspired policy environments

(rural and urban land/agricultural policies,

planning doctrines); and local-level politics

during migrants’ settling down

5 Understand migrants’

dwelling-level socio-spatial

practices in relation with the

territorial control of their

present homes during post-

WWII decades under

modernization

Findings 2: tenure history (settlement- and

dwelling-level) and morphological

transformation; everyday territorial practices

and dwelling forms; cultural (contextual)

components underlying territorial practices;

social organization and decision-making

structure of communities

6 Associate ‘control

mechanisms’ of home as a

response to the ‘scarce’

conditions (social, economic

political and spatial) of

modernity

Scarcity as a political instrument for socio-

economic gain for the ordinary migrants;

scarcity as a contextual expression of

alternative socio-spatial practices; the

alternative urbanism of negotiations; scarcity

and the social construction of home

15

Chapter 2: Literature review and conceptual framework

2.1 Introduction

In order to understand ‘once-homeless’ migrant’s ‘home-making’ process in a third

world city, this chapter begins by outlining a literature review framework. With

regard to the broad question and objectives stated in Chapter 1, this framework

identifies key scholastic materials from various allied disciplines interested in the

built environment. A review of these works originating particularly in the disciplines

of urban planning, architecture, anthropology, sociology and geography are

assembled under five main threads. Through this review, a few niches appear within

existing knowledge, which are summarized under ‘gaps’ later in the chapter. On the

basis of the reviews and the knowledge gaps, a conceptual framework is proposed

that helps frame the specific objectives, identify variables and select indicators.

2.2 Preliminary literature review framework

Among scholars, there is a growing interest in the processes, products or process-

product models regarding the spatial environments of various mobile population

groups1. A review of selected literatures across allied disciplines

2 reveals that

academics historically have been putting together efforts to comprehend the socio-

cultural components underlying these rather ‘informal’ dwelling environments, in

order to identify the elements and mechanisms that bring about spatio-physical

1. Sheller and Urry (2006) coins the term “New Mobilities Paradigm” to point to this

contemporary era of numerous movements.

2. Herbart Gans (1962)’s “The Urban Villagers Group and Class in the Life of Italian-

Americans”; Turner (1976)’s “Housing by People”; Rapoport (1988)’s “Spontaneous

Settlements as Vernacular Design”; Serageldin (1990)’s “The Development and

Morphology of Informal Housing”; Heynen and Loeckx (1998)’s “Scenes of

Ambivalence: Remarks on Architectural Patterns of Displacement”; UN-HABITAT

(2003)’s “The Challenges of Slums”; Roy (2004)’s “The Gentleman’s City: Urban

Informality in the Calcutta of New Communism”; Kellett (2005)’s "The Construction of

Home in the Informal City"; Dayaratne and Kellett (2008)’s “Housing and home-making

in low-income urban settlements”; Datta (2009)’s “Home, Migration, and The City,

Spatial Forms And Practices in a Globalising World”; Nijman (2010)’s “A Study of

Space in Mumbai’s Slums”; and Kim Dovey (2012)’s “Informal Urbanism and complex

16

transformation at the many levels of migrant settlements. Likewise, with regard to the

broad research question, the key object here is to work out a theoretical-conceptual

structure that helps identify the context-specific social and spatial components

underlying the migrant environments. These benefit migrants to retain some form of

ownership to material property (land and/or house) and become permanent in the city.

However, studies are almost non-existent which provide any comprehensive

framework that to help the study of host environments in relation with historically

significant waves of population movement (in- and out-migration). Research on

migration and urban form, though not plenty, thus remain confined within certain

timelines and referring only to an in-situ context of the host city. Studies on migrant

spaces, at least those in the ‘third world’ urban context also do not maintain reference

with the many forms of rural-urban interactions3. A diachronic reading of the spatial

impacts of top-down politico-economic doctrines (e.g. modernization)4 on pre- and

post-migration ways of life needs to be conducted as well. Impact-study of these

micro-level policies on the shaping of rural and urban spaces, particularly considering

an agrarian context such as Bangladesh, hence is felt necessary. Any appraisal of

‘modern’ third world urban form thus necessitates the inclusion of all the ‘forces of

modernity’ including population (migration), policies (politics) and production (e.g.

industrialization).

The micro-level studies on migrants’ dwelling spaces and forms in this research thus

make sense as it is assessed with reference to a specific timeline. In consideration of

adaptive assemblage” – are a few amongst a host of scholarly literature that looks at

various migrant’s everyday socio-spatial environments.

3. Lynch (2005: 6) identifies five ways in which rural and urban may be linked: food,

natural flows, money, people and ideas. As later chapters reveal, people’s social network

(discussed here under “People” category, p. 106) and ‘hybrid’ spatial practices and socio-

cultural customs and behaviour (discussed under “Natural flows” category, p. 92) remain

important components in the shaping of physical dwelling environments. A home in the

city, in many cases, hence retains reference with the long lost rural home.

4. This includes the broader ‘structural’ conditions formulated by supra-national institutions

(World Bank, IMF etc.) and implemented by national and local governments.

17

the required variables as stressed in the earlier paragraphs, five key theoretical-

empirical areas are chosen and reviewed subsequently. Table 2.1 outlines these

phenomena which are of interest to this research, disciplinary areas where the

reviewed literature originate from, and explanations why they have been chosen and

how they contribute to the conceptual framework:

Table 2.1: Literature review framework.

Key area Discipline Contribution to framework Bangladesh,

Khulna

Sociology,

Planning

Local context of Bangladesh and Khulna often in relation

with global

Population

displacement,

urbanization

Sociology,

Planning,

UN

documents

Correlation between migration and urbanization in the

third world context. The relationship between the global

forces and the local consequences is also highlighted in

many of these works

Slums,

informal

settlements

Geography,

Sociology,

UN

documents

Theories and empirical works on slum formation.

Theories of informality, silent encroachment, informal

economics, informal urbanism and assemblage, subaltern

studies (subaltern urbanism, politics of the governed)

Migrancy and

built

environment

Architecture,

Anthropology,

Geography

Architectural patterns of displacement, architecture and

migrancy

Home,

privacy,

territoriality

Environment-

Behaviour

Studies,

Architecture,

Geography,

Anthropology

Home-making through the manipulation of various socio-

spatial control-mechanisms; understand how control over

one’s own environment is practiced in relation with

different actors as a process of physical home-making

2.2.1 Bangladesh and Khulna

In the context of Bangladeshi cities, studies that seek to investigate migrants’ settling-

down process in relation to urban spatio-physical transformations are scarce. This is

particularly true of the research conducted in and about Khulna. Apart from a very

small number of studies supervised in local universities (mostly unpublished), three

works can be mentioned, which, to some extent, discuss the spatio-physical

18

transformation in Khulna in relation with various socio-political forces historically.

Devoid of any particular focus on migration and its consequences at the ‘lower level

spatial form’5, these studies provide partial accounts of: (1) spatial distribution of

migrant settlements (termed as slums mostly) analyzed according to demographic

variables (Hasan 2003); (2) urban morphological transformation following two

significant phases of in-migration (Dudek and Van Houtte 2008: 39, 45); and (3) a

comprehensive and updated database on “poor settlements” in Khulna, according to

variables such as settlement location, number, size and age; residents’ demographic

characteristics and economic information (CUS-UNDP-KCC 2011). Clearly, all three

of these studies provide a ‘bird’s eye view’ of the situation, and suffer from not

having a complex analytical framework to examine urban spatio-physical changes in

relation to socio-economic-political forces.

In the context of Dhaka, similar dearth of research is also found. Works (such as

Kemper 1989, D’Costa 1994 or Ghafur 2010’s) amongst many things, mention of the

contribution by migration and refugee-movements in the shaping of urban form. Yet

they are all generalized studies as none focuses solely on the phenomenon of

migration as a driver for urban form6. These are not architectural studies either, since

they have lesser interest in the spatio-physical transformation of settlements. Instead,

they outline frameworks and suggest of a methodology useful for discussing urban

spatio-physical transformation in a historical manner. However, the need to

incorporating both global and local forces (e.g. colonialism, economic doctrines,

industrialization and globalization) in the analysis of urban form is stressed in all of

these works.

5. Adapted from Habraken (1998); it states that lower the level of spatial form, lesser is the

participation from agents, hence is their public character.

6. Although ‘migration as a contributor to urbanization’ has been identified on several

places; see Kemper 1989: 380; D’Costa 1994: 702; Ghafur 2010: 7.

19

As scholars discuss urbanization in relation to migration, urbanization is discussed

mostly in terms of population increase and demographic changes in the city (Afsar

2003; Khan 1982; Islam 1999). When “consequence” of migration-driven

urbanization is discussed, they are discussed in terms of environmental outcomes

(e.g. water and air pollution) and socio-economic outcomes (e.g. increased violence

and crime, economic gain and empowerment etc.). When spatial outcomes are

discussed, they remain limited within the discussions of ‘encroachment of land,

growth of slums and pressure on housing’ (Islam 1999: 13-14). These studies provide

only a top-down view, focusing on the ‘breadth’ of the socio-spatial problems arising

from urbanization – not the depth. Ghafur (2010)’s study on ‘urbanism’, however,

appears most useful, as he discusses how housing provisioning in Dhaka under

neoliberal conditions has become subject to the market forces. He shows, with a

theoretical inclination, how present neoliberal condition has for its own gain led to an

overall privatization of the housing sector. With the help of planning bureaucrats and

with active political patronage, here private formal sector (developers) grabs land and

develops/builds informally, while ‘privatization of slums’ remain the only home-

making option for growing number of urban poor (migrants). Although not directly

relevant to the present research objectives, Ghafur’s work stresses the importance of

situating any research within a broader framework of analysis (here a modern

phenomenon, the politics of Neoliberalism). It also argues that as neoliberal

conditions lead to the blurring of formal-informal boundaries, studies rather should

aim at and assess the “alternative dwelling perspectives” in order to grasp the in-

depth understanding of “lived lives in space…in its hierarchical relation to the urban

totality” (Ibid: 13).

In the studies of dwellings and households, researchers interested in the process of

how the migrant populations manage to survive and (occasionally) prosper in the

destination city, have seek to investigate the livelihood (and survival) strategies of the

20

city living migrant chiefly (Huq-Hussain 1996; Siddiqui 2003; Hakim 2010; Hossain

2011). While defining these migrants’ living places as ‘slums and squatters’, many

demonstrate a methodological inclination toward a longitudinal study. Thus many

seem to assume a ‘biographic approach’ to trace the various adjustments in migrants’

social, political and economic strategies at different intervals ranging between pre-

migration and present times. A few amongst such works have dedicated special

sections of their analysis only describing the spatio-physical dimensions of slum-

living migrant’s dwelling environments (Huq-Hussain 1996: 99-104; Shakur and

Madden 1992: 80-81; Hossain 2011: 112-114).

Attempts as these, however, remain largely unsuccessful considering the interest of

this research. Although some architectural/spatial analyses are there, yet they mostly

fail to provide any analysis of spatio-physical transformation (at least) at the level of

dwellings in relation with their changing socio-economic-political circumstances. For

example, Huq-Hussain’s article implicitly mentions about the need for privacy

particularly amongst female migrants (Ibid: 97). Yet she still does not follow this up

with spatial evidences that show how this particular need is eventually being

mediated, using which socio-spatial-economic means/mechanisms, and with what

socio-spatial consequence. Similar is found in the other articles. Although there are

mentions about the importance of kinship-networks (Shakur and Madden 1992: 75)

and active political participation (Hossain 2011: 9), their spatio-physical analysis

appear to be mere descriptions of inert house forms and spaces, construction materials

and tenure status. It is hard to comprehend the role of such socio-political or

economic forces in the shaping of urban form at the level of the concerned dwelling

environments. Generally, for understandable reasons, these works are also

unsupported by graphical analysis of any sort. But notwithstanding the shortcomings,

there is a common important lesson these studies seem to offer. They all highlight the

need for including a ‘temporal’ dimension for studying migrants’ urban adaptation

21

process; this is akin to the need for a morphological study as frequently used in the

study of built environments. This approach certainly allows tracing back various

phases of once-homeless migrants’ settling down process (becoming permanent) in

the host city. It helps understand the occasions for transformation of spatial practices,

behaviours, spatial needs, customs and habits and hence the overall urban form in

response to changing circumstances. This approach also helps compare the possible

evolution in permanent migrants’ social identity – the uplift from a mere ‘rootless’

status to that of a citizen in the particular context of Bangladesh.

2.2.2 Population displacement and urbanization

Globally, a number of studies have been carried out during the post-WWII decades

addressing the correlation between internal-migration and urbanization (Abu-Lughod

1973; Halpern 1966; Roberts 1978; Wu 2010), or more recently on international

migration in relation with the socio-cultural-spatial aspects of the host-city (Blunt

2007; Colombijn and Erdentug 2002; Davis 2003; Eriksen 2001; Fenster 1996;

Lozanovska 2003; Pieterse 2000). Within the Western scholarship, the latter has

found most attention compared to the former, as scholars tend to show more interest

in the assimilation/integration process of the international immigrant within the

western urban environments. Efforts are given to comprehend the driving forces and

processes underlying this quite extraordinary influx of immigrants in recent decades7.

Tensions arising from this radical influx of immigrants mostly from former European

colonies have led to the publication of critical works8. It hence comes to no surprise

that spatial segregation, ghettoization or ethno-racial discrimination have become the

most recurring of themes among the mobility/displacement scholarship in the

postcolonial discourse.

7. In comparison to 1990’s, percentage of immigrant-inflows has fallen a bit in recent years

(due to economic crisis) (OECD 2009: 12); yet the net quantity of in-coming immigrants

are on a constant rise for these countries of the developed world (OECD 2010).

22

Although scarce, some authors have actually aimed to analyze the relation between

internal migration and the socio-cultural-spatial transformation of the host

environment. For example, Janet Abu-Lughod (1973) provides an ethnographic

account of rural migrants’ adjustment-efforts in the Egyptian city. Here, migrants’

economic, social and ideological perspectives have been analyzed in relation to city’s

physical growth and overall fabric. Similarly, Kezer (1998: 11) talks about Ankara,

where “structural changes within the state and its institutions triggered unprecedented

contestations over space by opening it to new uses and users while displacing the

old”. Zheng et al. (2009), in the Chinese context, also analyzes how the city living

migrant-workers’ housing preference for the fringe (rural) areas is increasingly being

challenged by urban expansion. Shao et al. (2008) examine the spatial clustering of

migrants in Bangkok and analyze that on the basis of various social networks.

Weiping Wu, through her two versions on rural migrants’ spatial distribution in the

reform-era Chinese city (Wu 2008; Wu 2010) highlights how these migrants are,

being subject to ‘hukou’, are spatially ‘trapped’ within a few particular locations in

and around the city.

Arif Hasan (2010b), in his “Migration, small towns and social transformations in

Pakistan” gives an elaborated account of three Pakistani small-towns where various

forms of migration (rural-urban migration, in-coming foreign refugees and

international emigration) have had both positive and negative effects on the urban

environment. Urban form, he informs, is being shaped by poor rural-urban migrants’

and refugees’ illegal subdivision of land on the city’s fringe areas as local

governments prove inept to project and deliver housing for these groups.

Simultaneously, the older city core becomes more crowded with the growth of

informal businesses after the affluent class gradually moved out to peripheral new

8. Please refer to, Ashcroft B., G. Griffiths and H. Tiffin 1989, The Empire writes back:

theory and practice in post-colonial literatures, Routledge, London and New York.

23

towns (fuelled by foreign remittance flows). This same remittance that has kept

contributing to national GDP growth has also led to the creation of socio-spatial

inequality. Without public spending, urban spatio-physical transformation has

remained concentrated largely around private dwellings, constructed by both affluent

and poor belonging to both informal and formal sectors. All these processes,

however, have continued to receive sustained political patronage by a landholding

elite class (Ibid: 49). This group’s political influence on both informal ‘voter’

population and bureaucracy (including municipalities and planning departments), as

Hasan recognizes, is conceivably the most important social component that underlies

the physical transformation of these smaller towns in Pakistan.

Now, in terms of the studies on immigrants’ assimilation in the West, they only cover

a certain (and very exclusive and) affluent portion of the ‘third-world mobile

population’, leaving the bulk of the ‘others’, i.e. the rural to urban movers, to be

discussed under different threads. It is therefore, even if the studies on rural-urban

migration in the third world city has remained one of the most cultivated areas of

research during the past 5-6 decades, these have been interested solely in the socio-

economic processes and consequences. These scholars have continued to demonstrate

their interest in the impacts of macro-level socio-economic policies on ‘slum-

dwelling objects’ at the receiving end (Chan and Zhang 1999; Deshingkar and Grimm

2004; van der Hoeven 2000), with focus on, for example, employment and income

(Todaro 1969). And when these migrants have been studied as research objects,

issues such as migration-motives (Skeldon 2003), vulnerability context (Moser 1998),

poverty (Lall et al. 2006) etc. have dominated the literature.

On the other hand, as rural migrants in the city are looked at as subjects, i.e. as actual

people as they are, micro-level studies here actually attempted to understand their

livelihood (or survival) strategies (regarding migration decision-making and settling

24

down process) (Hakim 2010; Kuhn 1999), gender (Fan 2003), effect of remittance to

origin (Fletcher 1997) etc. Similar have already been seen in the works on

Bangladesh as well. Other available theoretical threads that are concerned with

internal migration, mostly focus on issues pertaining to climate change9 (Black 2001),

rural-urban continuum (Tacoli 1998) or labour market (Betcherman 2002) – to name

just a few.

As in the literatures on Bangladesh, most of these global-level studies also look at

migration and urban form from ‘above’ – not through migrants’ own ‘eyes’. In a few

cases when such studies tend to focus on the migrants’ actual day to day space-

making practices as in Abu Lughod (1973)’s, they originate in disciplines other than

architecture. These works therefore do not comprise of any architectural analysis of

urban form and spaces; neither these aim to measure the spatio-physical

consequences of migration using architectural variables10

. None of these studies

provide any theoretical direction either, which helps comprehend the spatial practices

by the migrant population for claiming a sense of ownership over their dwelling

environment.

2.2.3 Slums and informal settlements

Settlements where migrants live in the city are commonly referred to as slums,

squatters or informal settlements. Migrant settlements, i.e. their places and spaces are

often categorized, rather crudely, as ‘poor-settlements’, ‘informal settlements’, ‘slum’

or ‘squatters’ (Gilbert 2007, UN-HABITAT 2003: 1111

). This homogenization

9. Migrants, when compelled to live outside their places of origin (due to war, climatic

disasters or political views), assume the title of a ‘refugee’ (IOM 2004: 53).

10. For example, diachronic study of formal and spatial transformation of migrant

settlements, their neighbourhood characteristics and dwelling environments in relation to

changing levels of density.

11. Interestingly, UN-HABITAT recognizes the potential heterogeneous and spatial qualities

in slums and with its dwelling communities; yet, it is probably due to their interest in

indicating a more global picture and stressing on the stature of this ‘great problem’ that

led to their usage of the term ‘slum’ in the first place.

25

reduces the scope for grasping the possible heterogeneity and multi-layered meanings

associated with and manifested in these spaces. As Roy (2011: 226) cites Echanove

and Srivastava (2009) to portray life in Dharavi12

, places like Dharavi, these authors

claim, are perhaps amongst the most active and lively parts of any city that have

developed without any public funding or support. These are also places of intense

economic activities – manufacturing products for even the global market. So

“understanding such a place solely by the generic term ‘slum’ ignores its complexity

and dynamism”.

Labelling migrant dwellings as ‘spontaneous’ (Rapoport 1988) or ‘vernacular’

(Kellett and Napier 1994) also does not help much. Although these concepts are

appreciative, these still appear ‘ahistorical’ and ‘apolitical’ without asking for any

particular reference to the dweller’s past and for not considering dwellers’ many

responses to everyday socio-economic-spatial constraints. Considering third-world

urbanization, scholars and research organizations easily approve of internal migration

as the number one force behind it13

(Abu-Lughod 1973; Correa 1989; Halpern 1966;

Neuwirth 2007; UN 2008; Wu 2010). Yet, even the most provoking of all UN

documents to date, THE CHALLENGES OF SLUMS (UN-HABITAT 2003) keeps

calling these spaces as ‘slums’ and its inhabitants as slum-dwellers, and thus take the

agency away from the latter. So a clarification on the concepts of slum, squatter and

informal settlements becomes imminent.

The terms ‘slum’, ‘squatter’ and ‘informal settlements’ share a few common threads.

Although there are clear conceptual differences14

, they all indicate to an actual

12. Located in Mumbai, it is considered as the “largest slum” in South Asia, housing more

than half a million population at a density of 3000persons/ha (Nijman 2010: 8).

13. UN (2008) summarizes this; Table 1 in Appendix provides a comparative matrix.

14. For example, UN and other agencies argue that the ideas of ‘informal’ and ‘slum’ are not

the same as informality can exist in areas which do not have conditions akin to slums and

vice versa (Jenkins and Andersen 2011: 2).

26

physical space that suffers from various sorts of lacks. A slum, according to UN-

HABITAT (2003: 12), is defined as an area that suffers from various ‘inadequate’

levels of physical and legal characteristics (e.g. poor structural quality, inadequate

space for decent living, overcrowding, inadequate access to safe water, sanitation and

infrastructure, insecure residential status etc.). A squatter, on the other hand, is seen

as an area having illegal land tenure, accumulated through organized land invasion or

gradual accretion. ‘Informal settlements’, on the other hand, are residential areas

which may have “dubious” land tenure; these are also officially recognized (planned)

areas where housing regulations have not been maintained while house constructions

are largely carried out without the help of professionals (Willis 2009: 403). The

sharing of a common negative attribute by these three, i.e. ‘the lack of something’ one

assumes, has led to their interchangeable use by even the global level agencies (as in

UN-HABITAT 2003: 9).

However, the term ‘migrant’ has often been interchangeably used, for example, with

‘slum-dweller’ (Mangin 1967; Karan et al. 1980; Mukhopadhyay and Dutt 1993;

Rapoport 1988; UN-HABITAT 2003). They have also been found described as

informal (Serageldin 1990; AlSayyad 2004; Brillembourg et al. 2005 as in Beardsley

2007; Kellett 2005; Kudva 2009; Roy 2005), indigenous (UN 2007), peasants

(Halpern 1966), urban poor (Noe 1981; Roberts 1978; UN-HABITAT 2003; UN

2005), and floating population (Li 2006) when considered in the less developed

nations’ context. Migrants are generally considered as ‘ethnic’ or ‘minority’ (Eriksen

2001; Fenster 1996; Gallagher and Tucker 2000; Hutchison and Krase 2007; Pieterse

2000) and belonging to a particular ‘race’ (Mercuse and van Campen 2000) when

discussed in a developed nation’s context. Scholars from the housing sector in

Bangladesh also commonly identify that migrants’ constitute the most of the ‘slum

dwellers’ (Ahmed 2007: 8; Angeles et al. 2009: 11; Miah and Weber 1990: 145;

27

Rahman 2001: 49; Shakur and Madden 1991: 69); yet they go for frequent labelling

similar to that of the previous parties.

Labelling migrant spaces crudely as slums and squatters also does not allow

understanding the ‘proper’ background of these people under investigation15

. It

overlooks the all important time-space continuum16

that migrants remain part of

notwithstanding their spatial implications. This, similar to Datta (2009: 4)’s assertion,

indicates to a “dualism” that leads to the conceptual limitations toward understanding

migrants’ different place-making efforts.

The tag of ‘slum-dweller’ also has deep political implications primarily for

authorities in control. Therefore, I argue in favour of a disinterested investigation into

migrants’ everyday lived spaces. Rather than devising a taxonomy based solely on

their legal status (as squatters) or physical-infrastructural conditions (as slum-

dwellers) of their places of living, this research aims to look at their ‘ordinary’

dwelling environments – more as an alternative way of living compared to the

mainstream city dwellers. However, the migrant needs to be identified because he/she

can be found actively practicing and belonging to similar socio-cultural-economic

elements in the city, much in the same way during his/her rural times. Even if these

people have been away from their places of origin for many years while their new

‘urban-born generations’ would probably never return to the rural homes (Hakim

2009; Hakim 2010), it is still not hard to find, even amongst these apparent slums, the

15. For example, Kellett and Napier (1994) frequently use the term ‘squatter’; this however

leads to the question, “Who exactly they are talking about here?” and “Isn’t it reducing

scopes for incorporating at least all the ethno-cultural differences these squatter-people

may actually have amongst themselves?”

16. This remains one of the major threads of debates regarding the international immigrants

in western cities; referring to the previous section, one may recall terms such as multiple

belonging; transnationality, juxtaposition and overlapping; flow, porosity and

connectivity; layered structures of nodes and networks etc, all used to ascertain that

migrants’ sense of belonging has much to do with their past and places they used to

reside previously.

28

clear existence of village-like zoning and other land-use17

on the basis of religion,

language and regional origin (Hakim 2009; Nijman 2010). So when studies

homogenize the origin and history of these migrants by labelling them as ‘slum-

dwellers’ or ‘urban poor’, the possibility of a ‘fair’ and ‘unbiased’ research is

fundamentally compromised.

Moreover, there could be different groups of non-migrant urban poor, whose poverty

could be attributed to reasons other than that of the migrants’. Satterthwaite (2005:

22) criticizes equating the poor or illegal settlers with ‘migrants’ this way, since many

migrants probably have attained the stature of a ‘mainstream’ citizen through decades

of upward socio-economic mobility. Classifications such as ‘informal’ and ‘slum-

dweller’ essentially indicate to the present legal and material aspects with regard to

the migrant citizenry while keep ignoring their history, a definite past (of the first

generation migrant), and migrants’ gradual socio-economic-spatial efforts to

‘becoming’ a true citizen. In most cases, describing the places and spaces of the

migrant as ‘squatters’ or ‘slums’ thus appear to be a refusal of migrants’ spatio-

political existence; it also overshadows their efforts to ‘becoming’ during their long

years of city living. This refusal becomes a case of an ‘authoritative misinterpretation

of common people’s history’ of urbanization in the global south. Such acts also

resemble the denial of these migrants’ politico-economic contribution to these cities.

So for research purposes at least, a need is felt toward using terminologies that look at

the settlements exactly as what they mean within their local context18

. Rather than

17. During fieldworks, I came across interesting concentration of people and equally

interesting ‘village-like’ zoning on the basis of race, profession etc. within the same low-

income settlements – akin to any typical Bangladeshi village.

18. Local expressions often provide clues about what these settlements mean actually in that

particular context. For example, in Turkish, Gecekondu is a somewhat equivalent

expression to that of slum in English, where this word literally means “it happened at

night”. For years Turkey's low income residents (who currently constitute about half of

Istanbul’s entire population) have continued to build at night to take advantage of an

ancient law stating that if such constructions start at dusk and people could move in by

29

investigating these settlements and their inhabitants in terms of ‘what they lack’, an

alternative view in terms of ‘what they have’ may also prove useful here. For this

reason, this research prefers using a less prejudiced term – ‘migrant settlements’ to

identify these particular dwelling environments. To understand the underlying socio-

political forces responsible for these settlements’ spatial transformation, four

empirical-theoretical areas are further discussed in the following sections.

2.2.3.1 Informality

According to Castells and Portes (1989), the idea of the ‘informal’ must be viewed in

congruence with three aspects. One, ‘informal’ is only conceivable in the presence of

‘formal’ – informal sector is an integral component of the national (read ‘formal’)

economy. Economy, in any country, works in a “two-tier” system where boundaries

and interactions adapt to variable shapes depending on its social conditions and the

political orientation of the government. In any country, for example within a closed

market system, small businesses often operate as extensions of larger firms. So there

is no clear-cut distinction between formal and informal19

. Rather, a series of complex

interactions between the state and the informal is what operates there. Two, the labour

employed in the informal activities have “special characteristics”. This involves

personnel, such as migrant workers, ethnic minorities and women, who, for both

social and demographic reasons, are not able to access formal economy and its labour

sunrise without being discovered by the authorities, they would gain legal standing and

could not be evicted without a court fight (Neuwirth 2005: 8). Similar is with the Bangla

version of the slum. Bastee in Bangladesh is the most frequently used expression for

slums. Yet, Bastee is derived from the root bashati, meaning a place for human living

(Rahman 2001: 50). Camp and Colony, derived primarily from English are another two

local expressions referring mainly to refugee settlements and low income government-

funded housing areas respectively (Hakim 2009).

19. Although defined as a binary, the notion of formal and informal are grounded in particular

cultural, social, institutional, economic and political realities of particular contexts.

Moreover, “what are formally classified as informal settlements, are not a concept that

residents recognize or apply to their reality” (Jenkins and Andersen 2011: 1). Formal

standardization as urban planning was primarily meant for the benefit of colonial elites.

Yet in present post-colonial conditions, urban planning mainly benefits the new elites. In

all formal situations, some form of informality should be present. Formal and informal are

not separate sectors but “co-exist in complex inter-penetrated manners” (Ibid: 3).

30

market. Informal economy hence evolves through a process of social struggle and

involves “weaker” people who are similar in socio-economic status. Informal

economic activities by these people are also often characterized by “stamina and

surrogate entrepreneurship”. Three, government has an invariable attitude toward the

non-regulated sector. Governments tolerate or sometimes even stimulate informal

economic activities “as a way to resolve potential social conflicts or to promote

political patronage”. Squatter settlements, which flourish on public land, can be seen

as one such example (Ibid: 26). The process of “informalization” hence can be

viewed not as a social process. Rather, it is the “expression of a new form of control

characterized by the disenfranchisement of the state”. For the latter, the loss of a

formal control mechanism over all informal activities is compensated by short term

acts of legitimation and renewed economic growth they offer (Ibid: 27).

Informality therefore operates on the “margins of rules and organizational

arrangements that no longer fit these people’s real condition and experience”.

Informal economic acts tend to be flexible and ad hoc, while they make use of more

“primitive (modes of) exploitation”. These acts are more small-scale, face-to-face,

decentralized and predominantly social-network based. Benefit occurs from a

significant reduction in overhead costs (for not having a bureaucratic structure) as in

large-scale organizations (Ibid: 29-30). The process of informalization may reinforce

some particular social groups that differ from the mainstream in any prevailing

society. For example, migrant communities may frequently be found living in ghetto-

like enclaves. Informal economic activities thus may take place as the migrants, for

being confined within this enclave, would often combine residential functions with

income-generating activities. With the development of informal economy, an added

sense of autonomy also develops within the social sphere (Ibid: 32).

31

Nezar AlSayyad discusses informality in the neoliberal urban (spatial) context. The

current era of market liberalization and globalization, he says, has given rise to a new

form of informality. Informality has created a situation in which an individual may

belong to both formal and informal sector at once. In spatial terms, informality has

assumed new forms and new geographies in terms of developments that may serve as

a key avenue to property ownership. Informality hence acts as an “organizational

logic” which emerged under the context of liberalization (AlSayyad 2004: 24-25).

The processes of urban informality also vary greatly between contexts and in

response to conditions. For example, whereas in Latin America urban informality

culminates into organized political affiliation and establishment of a reciprocal

relation between squatter groups and the state, in the Middle East the similar groups

assume a more covert stance by deliberately making themselves invisible from

political processes (Ibid: 14).

Ananya Roy (2004) discusses how in neoliberal Kolkata, the ruling communist

government used to make strategic use of both formal and informal spatio-political

mechanisms to transform Kolkata into a marketable “Gentleman’s city”. In order to

accomplish both political objectives (ensure vote and loyalty) and to serve the interest

of large-scale developers, Roy shows how the same government machines (formal)

and party cadres (informal) were used in combination. A number of events were

“choreographed” and implemented in a synchronized manner through the

establishment, eviction and re-establishment of migrant and refugee populations in

the city’s peripheral lands. These urban poor’s need for remaking home in the city

was exploited by the ruling regime to prove the regime’s legibility and power. This

home-making also helped develop agricultural land into sellable plots; promises were

given to these populations for their wellbeing and eventual settlement. In this, the

homeless population was first ‘rehabilitated’ on peripheral agricultural land, which,

without proper land records (maps or a master plan) was left alone for decades as

32

disputed properties. Government then would engage its party workers on a day-to-day

basis to ‘look after’ this large number of people by managing for them the gradual

access to urban services and infrastructure. With the absence of any formal/legal

document (e.g. title deed) whatsoever, a persistent sense of uncertainty was

deliberately maintained with regard to people’s land tenure. This in turn, would

ensure their absolute loyalty.

A lack of policies and regulations regarding land development on these disputed sites

was also maintained quite strategically. These migrants, left without a choice and for

being promised of future service provisioning cleared up these sites using their own

‘free’ labour, and turned these into habitable places. Yet this very land which they

were once allowed to live on would only be appropriated back later by the same

provider (government) in the name of public interest (actually to give way for large-

scale private-sector development projects for the upper-middle class). This tactic

proved to be quite successful; migrants again found themselves on similar new

frontier plots of land and putting in the same efforts, knowing they might be evicted

once again.

The power of the state therefore was derived from certain regulatory manipulation,

including ‘unmapping’ (an intentional maintenance of a lack of land records and

maps). Coupled this with the activities of ever-present party workers and cadres, this

would keep options open for relentless negotiations between government and other

actors on matters related to land right, proper title and land use. This territorialized

uncertainty thus would guarantee the flexibility of the state to retain its grip on the

grass roots as it would be required periodically. This strategy by the higher power

hence gave rise to grass-root politics by the minor groups, even if their part was

insignificant initially.

33

2.2.3.2 Subaltern studies

Works done by the Subaltern Studies Group, particularly on post-colonial Indian

history is another interesting track that again shows a theoretical insight for this

research. Proposed mainly by expatriate Indian scholars and later followed closely by

other Asian scholars, these works emphasize the fundamental relationships of power,

domination and subordination in a post-colonial society set within apparently modern

democratic conditions. Here “subalternity” comes to be seen as “the condition of

people, those who did not and could not belong to the elite class” (Roy 2011: 227,

citing Guha 1988). The subaltern politics hence means micro-level politics of

‘disenfranchised’ grassroots people outside that of the civil society in order to claim

habitation and livelihood. Needless to say, these efforts for claiming habitation or

livelihood involve violation of state law. In that, “subaltern urbanism” essentially

involves two key qualities: opportunistic entrepreneurism and political agency (Ibid).

Similar has been echoed in Partha Chatterjee (2004)’s concept of ‘political society’,

in which the latter is seen as a construct between the political relation between ruling

elites and urban subaltern population groups. Although most citizens in recently

modernized countries like India are “rights-bearing citizens” constitutionally, in

reality they are not part of the civil society whatsoever. Yet they are not outside the

reach of the state machines nor are they excluded from the political domains. As part

of territorial jurisdictions of the state, this subaltern population needs to be looked

after and controlled (Ibid: 38). Politics emerge out the “developmental policies of the

government aimed at specific population groups”. Many of these groups although

organized, exist by transgressing the boundaries of legality to manage their livelihood

and habitation. So to deal with them, authorities do not treat them similarly as they do

with other legitimate groups. Yet, as they remain important for their sheer number in

terms of clientele value, both governments and non-government organizations deal

34

with these groups as “convenient instruments for the administration of welfare to

marginal and underprivileged population groups” (Ibid: 40).

On the other hand, these groups accept their illegal activities, but continue to claim

habitation, livelihood and government welfare as matters of right. They also conform,

for example, they would move out if provided with suitable alternative sites for

resettlement. Although some welfare claims are met, the other claims are not regarded

by officials as justifiable, in the fear there would only invite further violation of

public property and civic laws. So negotiations with regard to these claims take place

on a political landscape. Government agencies give selective attention to particular

population groups on the basis of their political importance. To buffer such

uncertainties, groups in political society maintain numerous connections outside the

group – with similar groups, with more privileged and influential groups, bureaucratic

personnel and with political parties and leaders. However, for their power to vote in

elections, subaltern groups demand significant attention. This is where, Chatterjee

(Ibid: 40-41) argues, “The field of citizenship overlaps with that of governmentality”.

Considering this rather ‘political relation’ between the subaltern and the elite, another

concept requires attention here. Put forward by Asef Bayat, and developed mainly in

the context of the Middle East, it discusses the silent, compromised and hidden acts

of the subaltern population that is used for getting access to livelihoods and housing.

In his “From ‘Dangerous Classes’ to ‘Quiet Rebels’: Politics of the Urban Subaltern

in the Global South”, Bayat (2000: 542-543) critiques20

the typical association of the

20. He also critiques contemporary studies, and their ideas of “the passive poor” (for

portraying the urban poor as a ‘marginal man’ and also for generalizing and disregarding

the various ways in which the poor in different cultures deal with poverty; see Bayat

2000: 538); “the surviving poor” (for portraying them as merely as victims and hence

denying them of any agency – thus such people’s resistance efforts, advancements,

opportunistic endeavours and many social associations are neglected; see Ibid: 539); “the

political poor” (for being Latin America-centric and hence failing to grasp again that

apart from mainstream political associations, urban poor may also have other social

networks and culture-specific ties that could help them achieve their aims; see Ibid: 540).

35

term ‘resistance’ with urban poor’s effort in third world cities. For him, the term

“resisting poor” lacks a clear conceptualization, and also overemphasizes the

‘resistance’ phenomena and therefore undermines the more quiet and incremental

strategies assumed by the poor21

.

By definition, ‘negotiation’ implies a process “in which two or more parties seek a

mutual agreement through an explicit or implicit exchange of views” (Aggarwal and

Dupont 2009: 10473). A successful negotiation ends up with an agreement, where

“both sides have a stake in ensuring a deal comes out right. Deals are put together.

Deals are worked out together” (Low 2010: 3). These considered, the idea of

‘negotiation’ finds its best expression probably in the discussions on “quiet

encroachment by the ordinary” by Bayat (2000: 545) in the third world Asia’s

context. Quiet encroachment, hence represents the silent, persistent yet pervasive

advancement of the ordinary on the propertied and powerful that helps the former to

survive and improve their lives. Marked equally by quiet, largely atomized and

prolonged mobilization, and by episodic collective actions – these are open and

fleeting struggles without clear leadership, ideology or structured organization. Here

the struggles and gains of the agents take place not at the cost of fellow poor or

themselves, but of the state, the rich and the powerful. These grassroots activism are

neither necessarily defensive nor resisting but cumulatively encroaching as the actors

tend to expand their territory by winning new positions.

This is also how the notions of order, modern city and urban governance are

challenged. Often whole communities emerge as a result of such intense struggles

and negotiations between the poor and the authoritative elites in their everyday lives.

21. It comes as no surprise that in many disciplinary areas, and in the understanding of

diverse acts, the idea of ‘resistance’ is equally pronounced alongside the idea of

‘negotiation’ (as in Mondal 2006: 153).

36

Their actions may be collective and hence viewed as political only when they are

confronted by those who threaten their gains (Bayat 2000: 546-547). For example,

“the poor do not directly challenge the effect of globalization. Rather, in their quest

for security, they get involved in constant negotiations with globalization to maintain

or seek autonomy in any space remained unaffected. At the same time, (through this

process) unintended consequences of their daily encroachments and negotiations

beget significant social changes in urban structures and processes” (Ibid: 553).

Two goals drive this quiet form of action. One, redistribution of social goods and

opportunities (such as land, shelter, supply-water, electricity, roads) in the form of

unlawful and direct acquisition of collective consumption of public space (street

pavements, intersections, street parking places); opportunities (favourable business

conditions, locations and labels), and other life chances essential for survival and

minimal standards. Two, there is a need for attaining autonomy, both culturally and

politically, from the regulations, institutions and discipline imposed by the state and

modern institutions. The poor tend to function as much as possible outside the

boundaries of the state and modern bureaucratic institutions. They base their

relationships on more traditional modes including reciprocity, trust and negotiations

rather than on modern notions of individual self-interest, fixed rules and contracts.

This remains the most practiced mode of relationship not because these people are

essentially non- or anti-modern, but because the conditions of their existence compel

them to assume this informal mode of life (Ibid: 548-549).

Such entrepreneurism is best evident in the ways the subaltern populations continue

to engage in activities in many visible forms and spaces (see, for example, Tunas

2008). In many cases, such activities run parallel to official developments – in both

overt and covert forms, and by taking advantage of ‘loose’ official systems and its

spatio-political cracks and niches (Kudva 2009; Perara 2009). Or, as Koolhaas (2002:

37

179, 184) tells of Lagos, the formal infrastructure of planning – seemingly useless

and restricting to the intensions of the subaltern, also provide the all important ‘grid’,

within and through which these people’s entrepreneurial activities take place while

affecting urban spaces and forms. This is also akin to ‘occupancy urbanism’ through

which the urban subalterns assert territorial claims, practice vote-bank politics and

penetrate the lower, porous reaches of state bureaucracy (Roy 2011: 228).

2.2.3.3 Assemblage

Kim Dovey (2012: 353)’s “Complex adaptive assemblage” has a particular

significance in understanding the “processes, identity formation and becoming” of

informal settlements. It is probably one of the very few examples of conceptual

models that have ever been used in the architectural analysis of ‘informal’ forms and

spaces. This framework has its roots in the works of Gilles Deleuze and Felix

Guattari (1987), while it was later developed into ‘assemblage’ theory by DeLanda

(2006). The term ‘assemblage’ is a translation of agencement in French, which means

‘layout’, ‘arrangement’ or ‘alignment’. It suggests at once a “dynamic process and a

diagrammatic spatiality”. An assemblage can be seen as a whole, formed from the

interconnectivity and flows between its constituent parts”. It is more like an organism

in real life – a socio-spatial cluster of interconnections between parts where identities

and functions of parts and wholes emerge from the flows among them. It is not a

structural set of predetermined parts which are organized to work a particular way. It

is more a whole that expresses identity and claims territory. For example, a street may

be viewed not as a thing or as a collection of things. Instead, the buildings, shops,

signs, police, shoppers, cars, hawkers, rules, footpaths, goods, trolleys – all come

together as it they are parts of a single organism to become the street as we know it.

Yet the relation between these components, for example, the relations between

footpaths and roads or between the interconnections between public and private

38

spaces, remain crucial. In that, assemblage is a dynamic phenomenon, which is

dependent on flows (Ibid).

The key quality of assemblage theory hence lies in its ability to use acts of

territorialization and de-territorialization to explain the ways social and spatial

boundaries are “inscribed and erased”, and the ways “identities are formed, expressed

and transformed”22

. In the territorialization process, wholes form from parts and

identities occur from differences. Territory hence can be seen as a “stabilized

assemblage – a zone of order, a sense of home, and a stable space”. In present urban

world, focus is given on the processes of (re)territorialization (e.g. invasion of urban

interstices, construction of house, inscription of boundaries etc.) and de-

territorialization by which stable territories are eroded (demolition, slum eviction etc.)

(Ibid: 354-355). Assemblage theory is particularly useful for its ability to explain a

number of twofold concepts associated with informal settlements. For example, in the

twofold concept of formal-informal, formal resembles a tree-like framework23

of

regulations such as urban planning, while informal practices resemble a rhizomic

form – involving minor adaptations and tactics in contrast to the fixed ideals of

Master Planning. These two, therefore can only be explained when the dynamic

relation between them are understood. They cannot be seen as separate nor as

dialectic but rather as overlapping – creating an assemblage (Ibid: 355).

22. AbdouMaliq Simone (2004)’s “People as Infrastructure” is a similar piece of work, where

he discusses ordinary people’s open ended, unpredictable, flexible, mobile and

provisional acts in order to sustain the changing politico-economic realities of the

megacity. In his words, people engage into a conjunction of heterogeneous activities that

take place in the presence of seemingly incompatible institutional rationalities and modes

of production. Connection between places, people, action and things remain inseparable,

as tactics are formed in the interstices of complex set of constrains. People seem to derive

maximum outcomes from a minimum of elements; rules are formed form processes of

endless convertibility – turning commodities, found objects, resources and bodies into

uses previously unimaginable or constrained.

23. This reminds of Christopher Alexander (1966: 3)’s “A City is not a Tree”, where he talks

about Berkeley street corner. Here he highlights the interdependence of various designed

and non-designed (natural) components of the socio-physical environment, which, in

combination creates an overall system. “It is the unchanging receptacle in which the

39

2.2.3.4 Settlement process

Raharjo (2010: 10)’s PhD outlines a useful framework for understanding informal

settlements in terms of their tenure types, spatio-physical formation process and types

of built environment that result from such formations24

. His research, although

somewhat different in terms of objectives compared to this present research25

, begins

with a simplified ‘review framework’ that provides useful benchmarks for a number

of key variables. These variables are: type of settlement process; settlement location;

actors involved; nature of ownership; transformation and morphology. Depending on

Raharjo’s thorough reviews (Ibid: 15-36), the following paragraphs summarize each

of his sections. These sections are used later to contribute to the research findings and

analysis scheme for this present research. To keep the discussions concise, only the

summaries are presented without citing the many different authors. Additional

references are only used as felt necessary for further explanations of the variables.

Table 2.2: A typology of slums (Davis 2003: 30).

Location Tenure category Settlement type Metro core Formal Tenements: (1) hand-me-down; (2) built for poor

Public housing

Hostel

Informal Squatters: (1) authorized; (2) unauthorized

Pavement dwellers

Periphery Formal Private rental

Public housing

Informal Pirate subdivision: (1) owner occupied; (2) rental

Squatters: (1) authorized; (2) unauthorized

Refugee camps

changing parts of the system – such as people, newspapers, money, and electrical

impulses – can work together”.

24. Please refer to Table 2.2 for a typology of ‘slums’.

25. Focusing mainly on urban Indonesia context, his primary research question is, “How do

continuity and changes of the built environment mediate the process of tenure attainment

in Kampung development?” (Raharjo 2010: 4).

40

Types of settlement process: looks at how informal settlements develop with respect

to time and in terms of the (formal) influence of the state. As such, informal housing

follows a reverse pattern to that of formal housing, as tenure security is only ensured

once the buildings are constructed initially. Informal development follows two paths;

one, invasion – a planned communal act, carried out in a participatory manner

involving sudden and simultaneous arrival of invaders and occasional clashes with

authorities. Here the invaders remain well aware of their responsibilities, posses a

sound understanding of the political situation, and tend to have good time

management. Sometimes civil society groups may also be involved in the process. In

terms of land invasion, three types can be characterized: organized, collective and

scattered. Organized type is a planned invasion resulting in organized settlements,

while collective invasion results in semi-informal settlements with some degree of

formality since land being mostly legal. The last type – scattered invasion, usually

occurs in the form of unorganized squatting on the government owned land.

Accretion, on the other hand, refers to the more gradual settlement process. For

example, initial house construction by workers may take place informally beside the

factories where they work, while the factory-owner may remain silent for these

workers being of his/her interest. However, non-workers may join in later in the

house construction process without seeking consent from the factory-owner. Various

negotiations may take place later between these groups and the owner regarding their

stay and claims they make.

Settlement process may also be categorized according to the ways it is practiced

socio-economically. For example, Post-occupancy territorial control of accreted

property may occur in two ways: traditional and modern. In the traditional model,

control is practiced by conforming to the rules made by respected community elders.

Permissions and consents of these elders are sought for by potential occupants before

41

Figure 2.1: A typology of informal settlement

locations (Source: Dovey and King 2011: 20).

they move in. The modern form of control, however, takes place in a more developer-

like manner as illegally subdivided land is allowed to be occupied for a fee. There is

also a third model where landowners build without state authorization on titled

property mainly for the purpose of rent and seldom for sale.

Location of settlements: there can be

several locations in the city (Figure

2.1), mainly in the gaps and cracks

between the formal zones where

informal settlements can be found.

These are: waterfronts, escarpments,

infrastructure margins, inner urban

blocks, construction sites,

cemeteries, and abandoned

buildings. Waterfronts are typical of

South Asia and South-East Asian

cities; they are prone to floods and

other hazards yet job locations remain nearby. Escarpments are common to Latin

America; Favelas in Brazil or Barrios in Venezuela are two such examples. These are

mostly dense settlements and dilapidated permanent structures built on steep

mountainsides. These settlements do not have any streets or paved roads; people

move up and down on foot using steep stairs. The third location is the infrastructure

margin – the unused space between infrastructure facilities and used public or private

lands (e.g. space underneath the bridge, gaps between railway line and boundary wall

of adjacent property or sidewalk encroachment). Another location for informal

settlement formation is inner urban block – pockets of vacant land behind formal

commercial or residential blocks lining main streets. The formal facades keep these

informal ones invisible and protect them from thoroughfares. Construction sites and

42

cemetries are another two locations frequently subject to encroachment. In both cases

however, people who were once building construction workers and cemetery keepers

respectively, refused to give up claim.

Actors and roles they play: seven groups of actors could be identified each of whom

having a stake in informal settlement process. These are: providers, operators,

customers, suppliers, regulators, facilitators, and funding agencies. Providers are

landowners who put their land up for sale. The operators – actually the informal

speculators and developers, who after buying land from the providers illegally

subdivide land for sale targeting particularly the low-income customers. Suppliers are

brokers and contractors for customers; this group mediate transactions and construct

buildings for a fee. The state is the regulator; but as discussed in the earlier sections,

their role is often compromised and many regulations are systematically negotiated.

Facilitators are public and private formal sector organizations who would often

provide assistance/support to socio-physical development of settlements. Funding

agencies are formal sector organizations (e.g. banks) that fund land purchase.

Tenure security: can be defined as the right of all individuals and groups to effective

protection by the state against forced evictions, where land and house remain the

most important and inseparable components. Land tenure, on the other hand, is a

mode by which land is held or owned, or the set of relationships among people

concerning the use of land and its products. Land tenure is influenced by social and

political context of a certain locality. Yet, a complete tenure security imply neither

complete nor any right to sell, develop or sublet land and vice versa. Table 2.3

summarizes a classification of tenure types that UN-HABITAT has prepared.

Depending on global practices, this table consists of both formal and informal, and

traditional and modern tenure practices. Here, ‘traditional’ refers to the type falling

outside state-defined tenure system. These are customary practices or religion-based

43

rules and laws, which may concern the whole community other than some individual.

Within these systems, tenure security and subsistence opportunity arise out of kinship

amongst and membership of the community group. Here land remains a social

resource; an individual’s relationship with land gives him a sense of place and

relationship. Non-formal tenure hence is complex, inexplicit and context-based.

Table 2.3: A classification of land tenure types (Source: UN-HABITAT 2004: 8).

No. Tenure system Attributes 1 Freehold Ownership in perpetuity.

2 Delayed freehold Conditional ownership. Title granted on the completion of

payments or when development has been completed.

3 Registered

leasehold

Ownership for a specified period (from a few months to many

years).

4 Public rental Occupation by rent on publicly-owned land or house.

5 Private rental Occupation by rent on privately-owned land or house.

6 Shared equity Combination of delayed freehold and rental in which residents

purchase a stake in their property (up to even 50%) and pay rent

on the remainder to other stakeholders.

7 Co-operative

tenure

Residents are co-owners; ownership is at a group level and vested

in the co-operative which owners are member of.

8 Customary

ownership

Ownership is vested in the tribe or in the group; land is allocated

by traditional authorities like the tribe chief.

9 Religious

(Islamic) tenure

system

For example, four main types of land tenure: (1) religious trust

land; (2) individual full ownership protected by law; (3) state

owned land with usufruct rights; (4) collective/tribal ownership.

10 Non-formal

tenure system

A wide range of systems with varying degrees of legality and

illegality including regularized and non-regularized squatting,

illegal subdivision of legally owned land, and various forms of

official rental arrangements. Often, different forms of tenure may

co-exist on the same plot of land with each stakeholder is entitled

for a certain type of right.

Geoffrey Payne (1997)’s classification of informal tenure is also an important one for

understanding informal settlement processes. These are summarized in Table 2.4

overleaf. What becomes evident from this discussion on various tenure types is that

44

types of tenure and tenure-security are not necessarily related. For example, so called

house owners in informal settlements might well be able to buy and sell ‘properties’,

while a formal-sector renter of an apartment may not have the rights to do the same.

So integration of informal tenants with a formal land/housing market may not serve

the purpose of these tenants at all. It is more likely that as formalization would take

place through the granting of legal tenure, the tenants would sell their property and

return to another space of informality.

Table 2.4: A classification of informal tenure types (Source: Payne 1997).

No. Tenure type Attributes 1 De facto

secure tenure

No legal status for residents; sense of tenure security differs between

cultures (e.g. Gecekondu in Turkey). This type of tenure may be

attained through state intervention, recognition (of residency) and

provisioning of utilities and infrastructure.

2 Official

recognition

Although illegal, tenure recognition is eventually achieved with

efforts from residents, developers and politicians. This idea is

promoted through international agencies that dwellers’ autonomy in

decision-making on their housing needs should stimulate the

improvement of life qualities, and it should be viewed as a key force

behind official recognition process (e.g. slum-upgrading projects

using participation and self-help). Gentrification is common to these

projects once land is developed and land price increases.

3 Land rental Found in areas where private or traditional landowners wish to derive

profit from undeveloped land by renting. Renters’ tenure position,

remain vulnerable since agreements remain unofficial and unwritten.

4 Use rights A level of tenure between full, formal title and de facto tenure; this

type is intended to retain long term control over land by the owners,

usually the state, while providing the tenant with sufficient security to

stimulate improvements.

5 Cooperative

ownership

Collective ownership instead of individual; land is collectively owned

and managed by the concerned community.

6 Customary

tenure

Initially derived from agrarian practices; locally derived unwritten

rules, yet ‘known’ to members in such societies. So by nature, this is

also an informal-extralegal tenure type.

45

Transformation: occurs as a result of socio-spatial interventions from both dwellers

and external actors (e.g. the state, NGOs, influential personnel etc.). However, it is

the latter’s intervention that leads to two opposing consequences: either improvement

of tenure condition or displacement of tenants. Different forms of negotiation also

take place between the tenants and external actors during either of the processes. For

the purpose of this research, discussions are made only about the improvement and

negotiation processes. Settlement improvement through state involvement takes place

in two ways: physical upgradation and regularization. For the former, various utility

provisioning and infrastructure upgrading take place gradually, provided mainly by

government agencies and NGOs. In regularization, as seen mostly in Latin American

nations, legalization plays the key role behind the conversion of extralegal property

into liquid capital. It also involves infrastructure improvement as part of its holistic

nature. Indeed, not all informal settlements are feasible for regularization. Also,

regularization does not always take place on the present site; relocation can be viewed

as another type of regularization when current site is deemed unsuitable for future

growth (by external actors mostly).

Many acts of negotiation and resistance may underlie both settlement upgradation

and eviction by external authorities. Such acts prove essential for preventing eviction

and/or stabilize and extend illegal tenants’ tenure. Intermediaries may be used;

government officials may be approached, and money can be spent during a prolonged

and persevering negotiation processes. Thus negotiation stabilizes the physical

environment and hence strengthens tenants’ community’s identity formation. This

process of negotiation has already been discussed in the previous sections on

‘subaltern politics’. All these socio-spatial interplays, that involve negotiation, hence

influence the way built environments transform and evolve.

46

2.2.4 Migrancy and built environment

Compared to the prior socio-economic studies regarding migrancy and urbanization

in the third world, little has been contributed to knowledge in the built environment

disciplines (Fenster 1996; Cairns 2009); such works are hard to find with regard to

urbanization in the western world also. For example, Roberts (1978), Karan et al.

(1980), Bapat (1981) and Hardie (1989) represent a generation of researchers who

had attempted to describe migration-induced urbanization in the global south but with

a more top down approach. Only a handful of works (such as Perera 2009; Kudva

2009; Treadwell 2003), although partially, have in fact tried to show how the

presence of different migrant population has contributed to the physical shaping of

the ‘host’ built environment. And as most of these studies do not, works such as

Nabeel Hamdi’s outlines a useful framework. His analysis of low income housing’s

spatial environment departs from the subsequent understanding of the actors, politics

(i.e. various interests that people bring into a particular scenario) and place (Hamdi

1995: 109-111). His ‘frame-fabric-function’ triad as an analytical framework also

proves useful for measuring the nature of ‘ownership’ one enjoys in a low income

settlement (Ibid: 113). Yet, Hamdi’s work is more intervention-oriented rather

explanatory. Despite its provisioning of useful tools for comprehending the

underlying socio-political structures of these settlements, the framework informs only

to the extent required for an efficient and methodically sound professional practice in

such settlements. In that, it does not seem to delineate any theoretical thread and clear

variables. Housing literatures in general also do not study it’s users (here the

migrants) in relation with a larger context – maybe with some other spatialities in the

city, or with some other people or kinship network outside his physical house in the

slums, or perhaps with some well-retained rural customs and traditions.

‘Mainstream’ studies in architecture are also often criticized for being myopic and for

not having interest to relate their studies with the ‘larger picture’ (Knox 1987). For

47

example, Kostof (1989) draws a superb account on why and how settlements should

be seen as a continuum beyond the rural-urban divide, yet very seldom talks of the

role and intension of people (actors and agents) driving it. Architectural studies by

this particular generation can be criticized for not being eager to count the actual

‘agents’, i.e. the people and their socio-political-economic acts behind the processes

of urbanization. To answer the present research question, there is a similar lack of any

comprehensive framework. There is also a lack of working knowledge and data

regarding internal migrants’ contribution to urbanization (Hogan and da Canha 2001).

When compared with the ‘in-depth’ works done in the allied disciplines (e.g.

geography, planning and anthropology), architectural scholars are rarely found

working in the migrant settlements and with the migrant population. Kim Dovey, a

prominent architectural scholar with his expertise on working with the informal

settlements affirms that, “the complexities of informality remain under-researched

and under-theorized at micro-spatial scales”. Even if insightful studies of informal

settlements and urban informality are available (he mentions Turner 1976; Davis

2006 and Neuwirth 2005), “we do not have any well-developed theories of how such

urbanism works” (Dovey 2012: 351). On the other hand, “research on slums is often

aspatial, as if the ways in which they have been designed – the detailed materiality,

spatiality, density, amenity and spatial structure – are of interest only to the degree

that they affirm the idea of poverty and disadvantage as a prelude to transformation”

(Ibid: 365). Study on permanent rural migrants’ spaces, the social and spatial means

they deploy for home-making and the resulting spaces and built forms thus have been

found relatively unattended, taken for granted, or confused with something else.

There is however two important works that have seek to investigate the correlation

between migrancy and architecture. First, “Scenes of Ambivalence: Remarks on

Architectural Patterns of Displacement” puts forward a framework and hence

explains displacement (usually associated with keywords such as dislocation,

48

disruption, deconstruction, and otherness) as an instigator of creative practices and of

cultural change (Heynen and Loeckx 1998: 100). Referring to the architectural

implications of “poetics of everyday reality26

”, and yet admitting that there is a

significant lack of its recognition in mainstream artistic and architectural scholarly

works, the authors hypothesize that the intricate and complex practices of

“negotiation, negation, shifting and disjunction” as parts of the everyday reality of

‘others’ must have some architectural implications (Table 2.5). In a world provoked

by numerous structural conditions such as instant urbanism and globalization, this

framework aims to explain the aforesaid architectural implications with regard to

various forms of displacement (Ibid).

Table 2.5: Indicators for ‘architectural patterns of displacement’ (prepared in light of

Heynen and Loeckx 1994).

26. Generally refers to the works of Pierre Bourdieu, Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Carteau.

Implications Indicators Condition and

consequence of

displacement

- Pre-displacement conditions: critical moments in life – un-balance and

confusion; destabilization and disruption of a normal order of life;

appropriation, confrontation, tension and contestation over same space.

- Post-displacement consequences: variable meaning and ambiguity in

host fabric that cannot be understood with existing wisdom: semantic

gaps (lack of meaning or illegibility of prior meaning – e.g. new use of

public as private); semiotic gaps (lack of presence of meaning – hidden

existence and practice), and praxeological gaps (absence of well-

defined practices to guide movers’ behaviour); juxtaposition of forms,

habits and conventions in host environment.

- Improvisation, intuition, risk and creativity involved for adjusting to

present situation; new signifying practices, creativity and re-

codification of signs (using imitation, mimesis or traditional form and

spatial practices even alien to the host society).

- Unstable and contradictory forms, spaces and practices (conflict with

meaning in an oppressive, such as in a racist environment); creation of

a closed system against an existing forceful and oppressive system;

self-contained nature impeding hybridization and mediation.

49

In “Drifting: Architecture and Migrancy”, Stephen Cairns (2003) views architecture

and acts of migration as a coexistence of the binaries. His analysis entails the

international immigrants’ building practices within the Western urban realm. He

argues, whereas architecture is associated with “the ‘ground-ness’ (of essentially

Process of

settling down - Borrowed signifiers (image and form); meaning and practices from

other fields to produce new layers of meanings; metaphoric expression

of architecture using multiple external references including icons,

formal citation, and typological links from outside; metaphorical

transfer of architecture in ordinary practices (e.g. dwelling and

building).

- New situation leading to new practices, technology, forms and

meanings; borrowed and displaced building elements; contradictory

environment leading to ambivalent meanings; metaphoric transposition

(e.g. squatters inhibiting a city that does not exist on the master plan).

- Bricolage (combination of experiences belonging to different and not-

coherent whole such as rural forms in the city or vice versa, or colonial

architecture with local-influenced façade and western luxurious

interior).

- Problem-solving strategy to bridge reality with imagination; hybrid

architecture (architectural ambivalence, such as colonial architecture).

Role of

architecture

- Architecture as receptacle/medium (architecture bear, represent and

manifest imprints of socio-culture due to conditions of displacement).

- Architecture as instrument (built environment as instigator of cultural

change – architecture used as spatial tool for regulating behaviour and

discipline as did the Colonial rulers; new laws, new spatial regime and

territory, new philosophy, destruction, replacement, abolition;

demonstration of authority, purpose-serving).

- Building/dwelling as stage (creating theatrical space of negotiation –

people try out new roles, new text, new costume and body language,

new social relation; active and passive roles).

Identity

formation

(cultural)

- Constructed as a ‘process’ resulting from displacement; identity is

formed by identifying with roles, names and behaviour offered by

social environment; mimetic appropriation produces shift, selection,

recombination and interpretation – yet ever-dissatisfaction leads to

ever-search in outside sources; transformation and multiple

interpretation; ever-evolving and relative.

50

buildings), constitution of places and the delimitation of territories”, migrancy is

mostly about “uprootedness, mobility and transience”. The situation gets complicated

as migrants, instead of settling down27

, continue to search for a sense of permanence

and go on to create home. In so doing, a number of consequences arise.

Architecture’s capacity for “grounding, delimiting, and accommodating” are

constantly challenged through the material, social, cultural and emotional re-

territorialization of homeless migrants. Such reterritorialization also takes various

architectural forms ranging from the creation of segregated enclaves to the

construction of exotic or alien dwelling units scattered around the host built fabric. A

range of adaptive, syncretistic and hybridized architectural edifices may also be

found. Here architecture functions as a specific “isomorphic technology and

imaginary” for conveying migrants’ home-making efforts as “acts of claim”. The

signs of a migrant's origin continue to be reshaped and morphed according to the

cultural norms and forms that operate within the host society. For the migrant to

dwell in these times requires “negotiation of increasingly forceful flows - of capital,

ideas, images, goods, technology, and people” (Ibid: 1-3).

Within a multicultural environment, immigrants’ home-making efforts using their

own architectural signs can be affected by governments’ efforts to assimilate them

with the host environment. Rather than acting as an acknowledgement of difference,

27. This notion can be explained with the concept of ‘Multiculturalism’; “the expectation that

immigrants would simply arrive, settle, and assimilate, has been tempered by an

assumption that immigrants might settle in their new destinations in ways that openly

acknowledge and express their own cultural origins, even in ways that sustain links to

their places of origin. Under a multicultural conception of national or metropolitan life,

the split loyalties that accompanied migrant dislocation are given public expression.

Architecture and migrancy accommodate each other in an altered way...Architectural

reterritorialization takes place not according to the dominant territorial logic of the host,

or according to some universally assumed principle of settlement. Rather, it is expected to

articulate the diverse styles of settlement that distinctive immigrant cultures bring. Under

the logic of multiculturalism, national and metropolitan citizens take comfort In the Image

of a reconstituted architecture of places, regions and territories. These are places that have

been rearranged and disturbed perhaps, but they are also places that are understood to

have been culturally enriched and enlivened, and are consequently celebrated” (Cairns

2003: 7).

51

architecture is made to operate as a defensive mechanism (Ibid: 7). “If contemporary

dwelling is co-constituted with migrancy, then this sets challenge for architecture's

traditional investment in statics, foundations, groundedness, and stability...migrancy

means...not only changing places; it also means changing the nature of places” (Ibid:

8). When architecture and migrancy are juxtaposed, one can expect “an unwieldy

stream of associations...from the obvious to the cryptic, the significant to the trivial,

the reliable to the anecdotal, the threatening to the comforting” (Ibid: 17). Altogether,

architecture and migrancy can be correlated and work for each other as Table 2.6

outlines.

Table 2.6: Indicators for ‘architecture-migrancy’ pairing (prepared in light of Cairns

2003).

Relations Indicators Architecture-

by-migrants

Exotic architectural forms, styles and motifs and their interaction with

everyday life (Chinatowns); less articulated forms (expat-towns in non-

Western world); settler (colonial) territories; politics of cultural

production; vernacular form (Bungalow); hybridity; out-of-place-ness;

unorthodoxy; ever-evolving agency of migrants; informal architecture.

Architecture-

for-migrants

Marginalized architecture of refugee camps and shantytowns; overlooked

agency of migrants; architecture of emergency and poverty; large-scale

and bureaucratic operations; coded with economic, logistic, structural and

material efficiencies; portable architecture, architects as migrants.

Architecture’s

migrancy

Optimism, enthusiasm and possibility of enrichment against nationalism

and territoriality – essentially promotes humanism; architectural

typological logic over social needs – disarticulation of form and function;

macroeconomic forces of globalization; home instead of housing since the

former associates mobility while the latter does not; mobility and

settlement.

Drifting Instability of language; slippage of meaning; memory/anxiety of displaced;

intersection of migrancy and its diverse languages; denaturalized bond

between being and place; agent in relation to its productions, its laws and

the world that it creates; a capacity to see oneself somewhere else;

entrapped between the place of birth and the place of desire; pluri-local

places; ongoing, multiple, intermittent and intensified investment in place.

52

2.3 Summary: threads and gaps in knowledge

The literature review provides important directions for comprehending rural-urban

migrants’ home-making process in the city. It also helps identify a number of key

areas that are necessary for framing the research methodology. Table 2.7 summarizes

these important directions and looks at the gaps that appear. Depending on these, a

framework is proposed at the final section of this chapter, aiming to facilitate this

study and contribute to filling in many of these gaps.

Table 2.7: Threads and gaps in knowledge (derived from literature review).

Key area Important threads Gaps in knowledge Population

displacement,

urbanization

- Socio-spatial consequences

of (im)migration-driven

urbanization is studied with

reference to global-level

economic and political forces

- Studies carried out in the Western

context, focusing on the assimilation

and/or integration process of the

immigrants

- Primary focus on socio-economic

outcomes in relation to migration; no

spatial consequences discussed

Bangladesh,

Khulna - Diachronic research carried

out for investigating both

migrant livelihoods and

urbanization trends

- Important historical contexts

are established that facilitate

grounding of micro-level

studies and preparation of a

comprehensive framework

for analysis

- Despite some demographic data, their

meaningful interpretation in relation

with socio-spatial components are

scarce

- Migration studies have not been

conducted with spatio-physical focus

- Birds’ eye view of built environment

studies; actual ground-level processes,

mechanisms and methods ignored

Slums,

informal

settlements

- Ethnographic investigation of

slum spaces and social

structure

- Effect of global market

forces on slum formation

- Lack of in-depth architectural studies

similar to ethnographic works

- Focus shifts when migrant spaces are

viewed as slums (and migrants as

slum-dwellers)

- Formal-informal is a

continuum (rather binary)

- Structural forces (market

liberalization, globalization)

- There is no oxymoron to denote the

formal-informal continuum

- Most focus on structural conditions;

grassroots-level architectural

53

discussed as conditions

leading to informality, while

informality remains the

mechanism to resist and/or

negotiate with these

processes are ignored. Studies such as

‘forms/spaces of informality’ are

scarce and inadequate28

for grasping

‘how’ question on ‘micro-processes’

- Subaltern studies identify key

economic resources, and

explain how in modernized

third world nations various

actors engage in persistent

political acts to access those

- Draws examples from India mainly

- No architectural studies actually use

any subaltern studies frameworks to

investigate the spatial consequences of

‘the politics of the governed’ or ‘silent

encroachment of the ordinary’– both

focusing on power relations and space

- Assemblage theory explains

twofold concepts (formal-

informal)

- Shows how social and spatial

boundaries are inscribed and

erased, and expressed and

transformed using

territorialization and de-

territorialization

- Theory is mainly for studying twofold

concepts (e.g. formal-informal); but

lacks a clear analytical framework;

generally conceptual and less tested

(and hence less developed)

- Requires supplementary theoretical

support to be optimized for particular

studies (e.g. Dovey 2012, adds

“complex adaptive systems”)

- Nature of tenure and

ownership identified as key

components for informal

settlement process

- Framework to study settlements only

down to the level of morphology; not

developed enough to study dwelling-

level transformations

Migrancy and

built

environment

- Well-developed methods for

studying ordinary

environments

- In relation to migrancy,

architecture is used by

migrants both as an arena and

a means to achieving

permanence and identity

- Theories, though only a handful, are

developed with reference to Western

context chiefly

- Theories are not adequately tested

- No direct relevance with the question

asked in this PhD; there are variables

developed by these theories that might

be useful only

28. Akin to earlier architectural studies, Dovey and King (20011)’s “Forms of Informality”

discusses form-making at the urban level (and in terms of urban morphology). It however

does not discuss the ‘informal’ people’s space-making practices at the lower-level of

settlements in relation with possible socio-spatial compromises, and also in consideration

of the obvious constraints (spatial, economic) that ‘informality’ is prone to.

54

2.4 Conceptual framework: justification

Notwithstanding their lacks, the literature review certainly clarifies one thing. Any

form of transformation of the built environment, including accommodation,

construction of dwelling units, securing land tenure in whatever temporary forms that

may be, or even provisioning of infrastructure – these all require ‘being in control’.

People, who use these functions, need to have a sense of ownership and hence the

ability to be in control of the processes these ownerships involve. The nature of

ownership, as realized through various control (mechanisms), actually determines the

allowable limits to transformation of any spatio-physical setting29

. This is particularly

true of the migrant settlements where tenure status is ambiguous while the meaning of

tenure is slippery. Yet, to measure the nature of ‘control’ in relation to socio-spatial

practices and consequences, there is no framework which is readily available. For

this, the research begins with a theoretical thread called Home, which focuses on the

social dimensions of built environment in relation with the spatial. Later, the concept

of Privacy, the key variable of home is further elaborated. This exploration leads to

the realization that privacy is a goal, for whose attainment various control

mechanisms are used by actors who seek for it. In the interest of architecture, focus is

given on the environmental control mechanism called ‘territoriality’. The concept of

territoriality is used throughout this research to demonstrate how the various actors

have been involved in different spatial practices for retaining control of their

boundaries within a context characterized by a severe shortage of resources.

The diagram as in Figure 2.2 (overleaf), which is further developed in the later

sections, demonstrates the conceptual relation between privacy, control and

territoriality as an elaboration of the home framework.

29. This is discussed elaborately in the next section under ‘conceptual model’.

55

Crudely, as in the ‘housing’ literature, the word home is used, for example, to indicate

something that needs to be possessed (Turner 1976: 81). Home is also used

interchangeably with (the acts of) abode/dwelling (Ibid: 103; 146). Other housing

scholars from both worlds, such as Patton (1998: 268), Payne (1984: 120), and Singh

(1992: 200) associate home with ‘tenure’, ‘affordability’ and ‘building’ respectively.

What all these studies commonly imply is that for home-making, there is a need for

acquiring a ‘sense of control’ by claiming and occupying a piece of land, a dwelling

unit or an overall settlement. With regard to the research question that aims to

understand the underlying conditions, mechanisms and consequences of home-

making in the low-income migrant settlements, ‘control’ appears to be the

independent variable.

The theories of home, as will be seen in the next section, have the qualities to

comprehend historic conditions. As mentioned in Chapter 1, this research is

Figure 2.2: Relation between Privacy, Control and Territory (framework borrowed from

Altman 1975: 7).

56

interested particularly in post-WWII conditions, during which the ‘global mindset’

has been dominated by a need for modernization and hence industrialization.

However, in the interest of this research, the home framework focuses on conditions

particularly prevalent in the developing nations. The key role of this framework is to

aid a critical understanding of ‘the production of home’ under modern conditions. As

seen in the reviewed literature and also in the problem statement, the crucial role of

various actors in the many stages of tenure acquisition process demands of a

framework that enables the measure of these actors’ role in the production of

migrants’ home in the city. In that, the chosen home framework has been further

tailored and elaborated to aid the measure of spatial control mechanism of migrants’

physical home environments, with reference to all the actors involved. On the basis

of the literature review summary, following arguments aims to justify the selection of

home as a theoretical premise for this research:

a. All individual actors in social systems are, among others, physical

organisms that are related in physical space. The physical nature of

organisms is significant with regard to the actual residential location,

i.e. home – the base of operations of the actions of an individual

(Werlen 1988: 189).

b. Home is the sphere of the daily life and the arena in which

fundamental restructuring of society is materialized (Buchli 2002:

210-211, on Soviet society). As seen in European cities, changes in

the layout, meaning and use of domestic space is revealed in the

changes in ideology, economics, social organization and the

morphology of particular urban quarters at the scale of the city

(Lawrence 1995: 59).

c. Home refers both to a product and a process (Rapoport 1995: 29).

d. A geographic perspective shows that home is a construct that spans

across different scale-levels: dwelling, settlement, city and nation

57

(Lawrence 1995: 65); in fact, it spans across the body to

transnational space (Blunt and Dowling 2006: 27-29).

e. Home is also a multi-dimensional construct; it has, (1) Spatial and

temporal dimensions which include formal structural properties

across diverse geographic scales and times; (2) Societal dimensions

which include ideological, political and socio-economic factors; and

(3) Experiential dimensions which include emotions and values

related to the residential biography of individuals and households

(Lawrence 1995: 58).

f. In a recent conference titled “Home, Migration and the City”, the

flyer reads, “...at the heart of migration lies a fundamental

transformation in spaces and places that are linked to the social and

cultural meanings of home and belonging...Migration brings about a

material change in the places and locations through which notions of

identity, individual expressions and belonging are transformed.

Through the movement of people...cities, homes and localities

become re-narrated...Home can be described as translocal,

transnational and diasporic – shaped by consumption, remittances

and social networks. The domestic spaces inhabited by migrants are

especially important for their roles in constructing attitudes and

behaviours towards ‘others’” (ESF-LiU Conference 2010).

g. Unlike the usage of ‘slum’ or ‘informal’ for example, which are

mostly evaluated and labelled by externals (other than the so-called

slum-dwellers) and quiet often have a prejudiced overtone,

‘migrants’ home’ appears to be a more neutral terminology.

2.5 The social construction of home: a review of literature

Migrants’ home-making efforts, as Saunders and Williams (1988: 81) put it, open up

a range of crucial and interrelated issues beyond its material dimensions, and thus

beyond the primary levels of the dwelling. If named, “household structures and

relationships, gender implications, property rights, questions of status, privacy and

autonomy, and consumption” would only be a few amongst them. Within the

58

developing world – characterized by resource-scarce governments and bureaucratic

planning regimes, rural migrants’ home-making thus necessitates the strategic use of

all the spatio-political niches, loopholes and cracks within the formal system. As

highlighted in ‘A home in the city’ (UN 2005), it is exactly in these cracks and niches,

spatio-political boundaries between the migrant and external elitist agencies are

constantly being negotiated. Such negotiations, to a large extent, determine what sort

of ‘home’ is made.

Nevertheless, home-making as such is (and has been) also influenced by modern

conditions. The transition from village living to city dwelling comes as a ‘trauma’ for

many of the neo-urbanites. Drawing examples from urban Mexico, Stea (1995: 194-

196) shows that these ‘newly urban’ population commonly lacked the necessary

coping mechanisms to adjust to the modern ways of life once they were suddenly

exposed to it. As found, the initiation of the modern idea of a “citizen” had actually

left a levelling effect on the predominantly agrarian (hierarchical) community

structure in terms of how social responsibilities are exercised at the public spatial

environments. The notion of an intermediary ‘community elite’ that once abridged

the level of family to the local municipality became largely absent. For any such

need, households started clinging more to the friends and family network. A similar

effect may also be found in modern apartment house interiors, where a conflict

between cultural needs and modern needs lead to a fundamental transformation of the

spatial organization of the house interior (Ibid: 191). This discussion, however, points

to the way in which personal and social identities are found being shaped under

modern conditions, and through sets of relationships between members of a society in

the contextual conditions of a place (Lawrence 1995: 56-57). Considering these, the

concept of home and its spatial practices seem correlated with the sets of complex

and inter-dependent relations (e.g. formal-informal, patron-client, master-servant

etc.) between individual and larger society, and mediated by sets of affiliations.

59

Collectively, these affiliations define and are defined by ‘duties and claims’, ‘rights

and obligations’, and ‘social status and role of persons and groups’. These influence

self, social and place identities, and shape how the notion of home is interpreted in

specific situations in a given time (Rapoport 1995: 28). Altogether, this particular

construct of home hints of a framework that accommodates both tangible and

intangible constituents of interpersonal relationships involving the family,

community, government, education, employment, religion and recreation in the daily

lives of individuals and groups (Lawrence 1995: 65). Given the historic socio-

political context of Khulna, and considering the significant relation between the

societal and physical dimensions of home, the ‘home framework’ necessitates the

study of residential biography of migrant individuals and groups (as in Lawrence

1995: 66).

The Weberian idea of “action” relates “to the physical world; it subjectively links

objective social meanings with an activity, which involves the physical world as a

condition of action” (Werlen 1988: 183). Houses and settlements for someone like

the migrant thus become very important signifiers of their socio-psychological-

economic circumstances. Since the social components of built environment are

expressed through social actions and interactions (Herbert and Thomas 1990: 261),

social relations greatly affect the physical components (namely house-/settlement-

layout and house-/settlement-form). This reminds Rapoport (1995: 45)’s fundamental

question about home-making: “What kinds of relationships link which people to what

attributes of which setting30

, why and through which mechanism?” It emphasises the

fact that a sense of home only emerges when certain sets of relationships between

people and their system of settings in which the physical house becomes “the primary

setting or anchoring point”. Yet, many studies of home, conducted primarily in the

western context, emphasize only the individualist and family-centric conditions of

60

home (Ibid: 40). The dwelling remains the setting for the family, writes Sebba and

Churchman (1986, as in Ibid: 30), “in which maximum control may be exerted

allowing self-expression and leading to feelings of security. The result is that it

acquires unique psychological and social meanings, which...turn it into a home, i.e.,

which establish particular relationships between people and that setting”. Discussion

on social process yet again focuses on the internal members of the household.

Hayward (1978: 419) identifies nine ‘relationship-dimensions’ of home, amongst

which one considers home as “sets of relationships with others”; “relationship with a

wider social group and community”; and “relationship with the physical structure

(and shelter)”. This research again was developed in the context of modern western

housing estates and their inhabitants’ socio-spatial behaviours. The question of

possible ‘ways of home-making’ thus remains absent here. One fails to understand

the possible ‘other alternative mechanisms’ underlying. Similar concerns are echoed

in the works of prominent scholars. In his studies of home, Lawrence (1995: 58)

asserts, “its societal dimension, i.e. the political and socio-economic factors that

define home, are frequently ignored”. Stea (1995: 183) also that “usually ignored is

the fact that one’s ability to maintain an identity between house and home – that is,

actually to dwell in the place one regards as home – are strongly related to the socio-

political economy of the country (context) in question”. This need for realizing the

social construction of home in low income migrant settlements is further advanced by

the claims of subaltern/informality study groups as discussed earlier. “The

theorization of the megacity and its subaltern spaces and subaltern classes provides

accounts of the slum as a terrain of habitation, livelihood, self-organization and

politics” (Roy 2011: 223).

30. Setting is “a precise locality at specific points in time” (Lawrence 1995: 54).

61

Referring back to the problem statement and literature review, the most interesting

attribute of migrant settlements is their predominantly loose-fit and unorthodox

dwelling form, which can also be viewed as creative and often autonomous. The

flexibility of these forms owes to the ‘manageable presence’ of external elitist actors

and hence is shaped by the reciprocal decisions these actors and the migrants make.

Here constraints are used as advantages, while the distinct presence of many forms of

silent interactions continues to drive all forms of spatio-physical transformation at the

different levels of these settlements. It is the migrant-inhabitants, who’s compromises

and negotiations with both horizontal and vertical actors – both formal (governments

– central and local, NGOs) and informal (political leaders, businessmen, landlords),

which is maintained generally in socially amicable ways, becomes the most essential

of all social components determining the spatio-physical (i.e. planological)

transformation of migrant settlements.

These considered I refer to “THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF HOME” by Peter

Somerville (1997). This framework helps understand the societal processes of home-

making in relation with the spatial and phenomenological components. This

integrated framework examines the meaning of home in terms of a ‘socio-

phenomenological trinity’ namely: privacy, identity and familiarity as they make

sense of each other by complementing each other and combining variables from

allied disciplines (Figure 2.3). Here, privacy suggests mainly of the spatial notions,

identity refers to the psychological notions and familiarity to the social (relational)

notions. Since studies of home are commonly carried out with a phenomenological

focus, Somerville argues that a social dimension is also essential to comprehend the

meaning of home since a mere phenomenological dimension of home runs the risk of

neglecting the economic and material meanings and hence of becoming inept to

recognize the social relations behind the process of meaning making. A social

dimension, in addition to phenomenological dimensions, is capable of determining

62

social relations and/or tenure issues as in here, for example, as an essential social

process underlying home-making (Ibid: 231).

According to this framework, “each household makes its own world within

boundaries which it erects against the world outside. At this level, familiarity is most

strongly linked with privacy, because the power to exclude others is essential for

securing a place for one’s own (close kin), with shared personal activities, lifestyles,

furnishings, decorations etc. Success in creating such domestic familiarity however

requires certain economic resources and legal rights which act as the means to

support and manage a household; this also requires security of possession of a

dwelling for that household. Lack of such means or security results in homelessness,

and in such conditions domestic familiarity and privacy tend to break down, and the

identity of the household unit is also weakened. A reasonable level of household

income and security of tenure are therefore essential for domestic privacy, identity

and familiarity” (Ibid: 236). To forward this argument, focus is given on the ‘Privacy-

Identity’ pairing, since they link spatial with social – which is also the focus of this

Figure 2.3: The “social phenomenology” framework – showing three essential dimensions

for a “Social Construction of Home” (prepared in accordance with Somerville 1997).

63

research. Identity can be seen as a formation by the interplay of privacy practices

through social relations. The three components of the framework are:

Privacy is manifested in private specialized space – a sort of separation from rest of

the society leading to demands for privacy. Privacy is constructed through a dialectic

interaction between the inside and outside of a boundary of a particular type (e.g. as

room within a house or dwelling within the settlement etc.). The ability to remain

‘private’ demonstrates the power to decide for both individuals and households

whether or not to engage with strangers and to what extent. This ability guarantees

anchorage – a status mandatory for maintaining membership to a social network by

continuing economic and legal relations to gain economic benefits and legal rights.

For example, in modern day Europe privacy practices involve both physical and

psychological construction of boundaries.

Physical construction of boundaries takes place according to familial

and cultural ideology. It is due to the change in political and familial

structures in response to economic and social changes, rather than

physical or psychological ones that determine the meaning of home.

Privacy practices may be manifested in the creation of ‘front’ and

‘back’ areas of house, and through the different layout/spatial

arrangements (and subsequent rise and decline) of house spaces.

Semi-public or semi-private areas are used as contact zones, i.e. the

permissible/penetrable depth of space. Gendered spaces are

demarked according to gender or master-servant roles. Privacy is

about maintaining distance from neighbours and surroundings. In

some countries, public display and public recognition of household’s

private identity and social status is common; it demonstrates that the

extent of being private is also variable. For boundary control,

dialectic negotiation between ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ takes place,

where both ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ maintain their own roles and

contribute to create boundaries to achieve the desired level of

64

privacy. Privacy may also be achieved through the psychological

establishment of personal space (Ibid: 232-234).

Identity is formed through a process of “dialectic between self and other” for

individuals and households alike. It essentially involves ‘dialectic of boundary

control’ as works from allied disciplines show.

In social terms, identity is a product of ‘negotiation of boundaries’

between actors with different power status; identity is constructed

through the “articulation of pre-existing social relations, especially

those of class, status and power”. It thus remains more ‘external’,

while domestic privacy is required to ensure self identity. Identity

may also be constructed at the level of groups; it can be measured in

terms of relationship between one’s own (e.g. ethnic) social group

and others. Although not dialectical, yet the way boundary is

demarked and maintained is same as in phenomenological accounts

of self identity; social closure is required for group identity. At this

level of groups, the common identity stems “as a consequence of the

operation of a complex dialectics of appropriation within core ethnic

communities” with a shared historical experience and shared

association with a specific origin/homeland. Identity of a human

being as an autonomous individual is bound up with his membership

of a body of citizens who all own property (material and/or

intellectual) according to the same set of rules and laws. Identity,

however, stems essentially from the notion of ‘individualism’.

In phenomenology, identity forms from the “dialectic of

appropriation”, concerning “the acquisition of symbolic meaning

through changing transaction (interaction and interrelation) over

time”; identity is constructed from the viewpoint of the “conscious

subject”, thus making it more ‘internal’ in nature (Ibid: 234-235).

Familiarity is the maintenance of identity through “continuity and stability of

experience”; it is the loss of the familiar (for refugees or migrants driven out of home)

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is a loss of identity to a considerable extent. Domestic relations are dominated by

familial structures; “the process of domestication involves familiarization – “the

process of creating and maintaining permanent relationships of caring, sharing, and

solidarity of feeling and action”.

Phenomenology – people, as individuals or as groups, feel at home

(private, familiar) if they are in control of their own boundary where

they can be themselves and they are being able to (re)produce the

world within this boundary they make.

Sociology – links between domestic and family relations create a

sense of familiarity; familiar are those locations in space where

regular activities are performed; time of regular activity also create a

sense of ‘place’. Stable kinship and other wider social relations as

part of a ‘network membership’ leads to “mutual familiarity”.

Frequency and regularity of intra-network transactions throughout

life is the key determinant of familiarity.

Anthropology – familiar is seen as a natural opposition to foreign,

alien, exotic while dialectic is understood in structural terms,

primarily determined by “structures of kinship”; familiarity is

produced by ritual (repeated acts) and by myth (inter-generationally

transmitted interpretive records or narratives) and essentially by

culture (a combination of practices, customs and traditions particular

to a certain group). However, at the level of groups it is

comparatively difficult to maintain boundary which is much easier at

individual and household levels.

Heterophenomenology – familiarity is produced by repeated

voluntary transactions within groups. Subjects make themselves at

home by “marking and safeguarding their own boundaries and they

manage this partly through repetitive behaviour and story-telling”.

Familiarity implies regularity of appearance. Exclusion of others (i.e.

ensure privacy by creating various forms of ‘boundary’ between ‘self

and the other’) is prerequisite to secure a place of its own at the level

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of households; within households, it is the “shared activities,

lifestyles, furnishings, decorations etc.” amongst close kin”.

Successful creation of familiarity hence requires “certain economic

resources (income) and legal rights (tenure security) – means to

support and manage a household and the security of possession of a

dwelling”. Without these, “domestic familiarity and privacy tend to

break down and identity of the household unit is also weakened”

(Ibid: 235-237).

Going back to Somerville (1997)’s model, few mentions of an external force behind

the shaping of ownership is found. And when the issue of ownership in relation to

external forces is discussed, the experiences of the western democratic society (hence

‘formal’) does not help much toward the understanding of complex social processes

(politics) present in the pseudo-democratic and essentially class-based societies in the

developing world. It is therefore, even if “the sociological literature interprets the

meaning of home through sociological categories such as class, gender and tenure”

(Ibid: 229), they mostly use concepts of domestic (in-house) relations and household

structure rather explaining how in the developing world external (elitist) actors and

their networks fundamentally influence the process of ownership of land and houses.

Although many contemporary literatures discuss the effect of socio-political factors

in the shaping of home they again depend too heavily on western experiences (as in

Mallett 2004; Blunt A. and R. Dowling 2006). In other cases, they share experiences

from the global south but without any discussions on the influences of external social

relations on form-making (as in Dayaratne and Kellett 2008).

Adapting a Western model for the proposed research has other downsides too. Since

the life priorities of the western subjects are different compared to the slum-living

migrants from the developing world, any research on the meaning (and process)

associated with home demands for a change of priority while choosing variables.

While focus on psychological and phenomenological notions (e.g. security, status,

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feminism etc.) dominate home research in the western context (Somerville 1997:

229), the issues of basic needs (e.g. ownership, accessibility, economic/livelihood

dimensions) find greater significance in the research framework for studying rural

migrants’ home and its spaces in the non-Western context. The nature of democracy

that is practiced in the developing world is also questionable compared to that of the

west; Rapoport’s question on “mechanism” hence probably bears greater significance

as in the cases of Khulna or in Kolkata (Roy 2004) than in western societies. It is in

these places social relations exogenous to the immediate level of the house tend to

play a key role in determining successful home-making. From a migrants’ perspective

and with reference to the context of class-based third world societies, Rapoport

(1995: 45)’s initial question could be further elaborated. Given the circumstances, it

should be asked: “What sort of social relationship link which classes of people to

what attributes of which setting, and through which (informal) mechanism and to

what effect (on the built environment)?”

This relationship, in which the urban poor in the developing world engages with the

powerful elite, is more complex and informal compared with its counterparts of the

west. The persistent acts of negotiation, resistance or compromise involved in such

processes hence demands for the further development of Somerville (1997)’s

framework. Even in the dearth of economic resources and considering the market-

turn of western societies, a typical western citizen is still benefitted by the

governments’ welfarist principles and rule of law. In the absolute presence of the

“formal” in western societies, the question of “possible mechanisms outside formal

means” hence is not an essential component, and understandably is difficult to find

out in the numerous frameworks of home proposed by western scholars.

On the basis of Somerville’s framework and in light of the literature review, it can

now be argued that the notion of privacy, i.e. the idea of being in a decision-making

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position of one’s own environment, by being in control of tenure (an anchorage)

remain the most important ‘start-up component’ for home-making especially

considering the poor migrants’ socio-economic status. For the same reason, scholars

have viewed home tantamount to ‘ownership’, and affirmed its key role for security,

family and continuity of any household (Dupuis and Thorns 1996). These

deliberations also coincide with ‘the’ prime objective of home-making as found

earlier in the reviewed housing literature. Nevertheless, how one acquires the

ownership outside the formal mechanisms and hence continues to enjoy his/her claim

has not been elaborated and incorporated in Somerville’s model. This requires further

elaboration of the concept of Privacy in relation with the notion of ‘control’.

2.6 Privacy, control and territoriality

Privacy: is essentially an interpersonal boundary-control process that paces and

regulates interaction with others (Altman 1975: 10). Similar to the way the boundary

properties (permeability) in cell membranes adjust and shift to achieve a

desired/viable level of functioning, physical, social and psychological boundaries and

barriers are also used by persons and groups in response to changing circumstances to

control other’s access (Ibid: 27). Privacy hence can be defined as a “selective control

of access to the self or to the one’s group”. The following characterize privacy:

1. Privacy is of two types: “desired” and “achieved”. ‘Desired privacy’

is a subjective statement about how much or how little contact is

‘ideally’ desired at a given moment in time, while ‘achieved privacy’

is the actual degree of contact that results from the interaction with

external actors (Ibid: 10). If the achieved level of privacy is higher

than desired, a person or group can be seen isolated from the society.

If the achieved level is lower (as can be hypothesized of slums), the

situation can be termed ‘crowded’. Different reactions may occur

from the person or group to counter these situations. Attempts may

be made to reinforce the existing boundary or assume additional

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boundary control mechanisms to address crowding. A person or

group may increase distance from others. He/she may use more

vigorous nonverbal behaviours to communicate undesired intrusion,

or may even put in clear territorial boundaries (Ibid: 8).

2. There are three reoccurring themes of privacy. One, the desire for

privacy – the most essential component of home-making involving

multiples social units or actors (e.g. the permanent migrant and other

elitist actors with varying interests, in this research). Two, analysis of

privacy and its boundary-control mechanisms need to be viewed as a

“bidirectional process”, (e.g. involving both inputs from external

actors to the migrants, and vice versa). Three, the definition implies

selective control (a dynamic process), where privacy practices

assume different forms in response to different circumstances over

variable periods of time (Ibid: 18).

3. There are also the “behavioural mechanisms” used by actors to

achieve their desired level of privacy. These mechanisms, which act

as an “integrative system”, are a combination of four components;

these are: verbal behaviour, nonverbal use of the body,

environmental behaviour (personal space and territory), and

culturally defined norms and practices. In many cases, these

components may substitute for each other (Ibid: 32). A framework

for understanding the nature of boundary control (for achieving

privacy) requires a focus on the ‘environmental mechanisms’. These

different levels, however, operate as a “coherent system” (Figure 2.1,

earlier) where one may substitute for another (e.g. appropriation of

roadside space using objects rather claiming it verbally). This

operation of the coherent system however shapes and is being shaped

by the concerned socio-physical environment (Ibid: 4).

Control: as a concept, control is related to dominance; yet it has a much broader

implication. It accommodates the influence that a person can have on other people, on

spaces, and even on ideas in both active (initiating or offensive) and passive (resistive

and defending) ways (Edney 1975: 1109). In the built environment, the key to

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perceiving change rests in the idea of control. Control then can also be defined as the

ability of the actors (interested in the built environment) to transform parts of the

environment. Actors exercise control by many acts of inhabitation exerting formal

control means transforming. Alternatively, behind all transformation underlie the

intension to control. Any addition, subtraction, displacement or removal of physical

parts with or off the built environment involves some form of controlling actors – a

person, a group, an organization or an institution (Habraken 1998: 8). This invariably

brings on the discussion on territoriality, which involves “ownership or possession

and occasional active defence” by actors in control. Territorial behaviour as an

“interpersonal boundary-mechanism” is not simply confined within “keeping out”

somebody from one’s own ‘turf’ (Altman 1975: 104). Actors who territorialize the

environment bring individual interest to the field, and transform it to their likings,

using acts of personalization. These actors in control may contest for a particular

territory, while simultaneous communication, negotiation and cooperation take place

– keeping the environment in ‘equilibrium’ (Habraken 1998: 29).

Territoriality: the relation between territoriality and control can be outlined in

different ways. A territory may be viewed as an area controlled by an individual, a

family, or a collective body. Personal territory may be a private claim on space,

where the individual develops some form of comfort, control and tacit rights. Yet in

all cases, actors use their territories to increase power and control. Thus territoriality

can be defined as an act of achieving and retaining control over a particular segment

of space; for the latter, control is essential for achieving a fundamental goal of

humans, i.e. the freedom of choice in their environments (Edney 1975: 1109). If

territory provides control (i.e. desired level of privacy), people act tolerantly to crowd

and shorter interpersonal distances (Ibid: 1110).

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Built environment can then be viewed essentially as a “territorial organization”, as a

space under the control of various actors/agents. In order to control form, the agents

must possess the capacity (read power) to transform space which is constructed by the

form under consideration. Transforming a “material configuration”, i.e. controlling of

form is a prerequisite for controlling space. “Control of space denotes the ability to

defend that space against unwanted intrusion. Space under control is territorial, and

distinguishing such territory is fundamental to inhabiting”. Territorial control,

primarily as an instinctive act is the ability to close a space for restricting entry

(Habraken 1998: 126). The very act of inhabitation i.e. that of occupying space and

selecting what comes in and what stays out is essentially territorial. Territory hence

can be recognized as space into which only certain items may enter. Following are the

typical attributes that associate territoriality:

1. A few common themes underlie the many definitions of

territoriality. One, territoriality is always referred to certain places

or geographical areas. Two, territorial behaviour serves a number of

socio-physical needs and motives. Three, all definitions convey the

idea of ownership of a place. Four, there are processes of

occupation and personalization (e.g. by spatial marking device

such as signs or fences) involved in all territorial behaviour.

Movement by outsiders across such boundaries take place with

caution and subject to permission only. Five, a territory may be a

domain of social units of varying sizes (a person’s place as a

bedroom, or a group’s place as house) (Altman 1975: 105). Six, in

the presence of territories, intrusion and defence is also natural;

preventive and marking behaviour is used to set up territories (and

hence personalize and symbolize ownership). Reactive or defensive

behaviours occur in response to actual or potential moments of

invasion (Ibid: 107).

2. Rules determine how parts are admitted or excluded from territorial

space (Ibid: 127). Various territorial acts, norms and customs, and

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legal deeds are used to keep boundaries under control (Altman 1975:

128). Local enforcements, whether formal or informal, establish (the

allowable) territorial depth within broader urban fabric (Ibid: 145).

Form hierarchies eventually reflect the common values of agents

who within certain accepted constraints, mutually interact with

external material, technical and economic conditions.

3. Depending on the degree of control as practiced by occupants, and

also considering the relative duration of users’ claim to the space,

three types of territories are identified (Ibid: 111):

a. Primary Territories: owned and used exclusively by individual

social units (individuals or groups), and are clearly recognizable by

others. These are controlled on a “relatively permanent basis”, and

are central to the day-to-day lives of the occupants. One’s house is a

good example of a primary territory where “the identity of the owner

is salient, invasion or unpermitted entry by outsiders is a serious

matter, and control over access is highly valued”. These territories

are powerful privacy-regulation mechanisms, violation of which lead

to the (re)adjustment of boundaries. Unsuccessful readjustments for a

longer time lead to a lack of self-esteem and self-identity (Ibid: 112).

These territories are ‘places’, which evolve through gradual

personalization and control as practiced by its users. As an important

boundary-regulation process, this links privacy regulations, territorial

mechanisms and self-identity.

The idea of “interactional territory”, on the other hand, explains

how a social group’s “personal spaces” are formed and maintained,

surrounded by “an invisible membrane” rather than having

boundaries associated with objects and areas. These spaces have

elements of public access but also a degree of control by occupant

social groups. The restricted use of an area by individuals and groups

are ensured by a certain framework of rules. These are public level

personalization by groups rather than individuals that benefit the

group rather the individual (Ibid: 117). There is a greater mixture of

use of privacy-regulation behaviours, as people constantly adjust and

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readjust to ensure adequate understanding of others’ boundary

processes and ensure proper communication of their own.

b. Secondary Territories: less central, less pervasive and less

exclusive. In ‘home territories’ as they are widely known, regular

users have relatively free access and a certain amount of control over

others’ use of space. Ownership and possession sometimes extend to

specific objects such as seats or tables in a public space, with certain

rules limiting the users from certain acts. Secondary territories act as

a bridge between the absolute control of primary territories and

almost-free use of public territories by all users. As boundaries are

continuously being established, tested and violated, confusion

regarding its threshold (and possible conflict between actors) may

arise (Ibid: 114).

c. Public Territories: are temporary spaces where almost everyone has

free access and occupancy rights. Occupancy of places such as

streets and parks is generally available without restrictions as long as

certain rules are adhered to. Although the individual has freedom of

access, he must refrain from certain actions and behaviours –

restricted by laws, regulations and cultural customs. Their access and

use are usually limited in time. Public jurisdictions, for example, do

not usually involve ownership or possession; rather, they control

only the right to access for a brief period of time facilitating a

particular purpose (Ibid: 119). In the absence of efficient boundary-

control mechanism in a public domain, people rely heavily on

alternative mechanisms to attain some degree of privacy (Ibid: 120).

The concept of “defensible space” explains how some undesignated

and ambiguous territories within a public realm generate social ills.

These places are not controlled by the residents – they are not

personalized and could not be easily watched by the occupants.

Secondary territories, because of their semi-public quality, thus often

have unclear rules regarding their use and are susceptible to

encroachment by a variety of actors with the use of a variety of

techniques. Studies show that a lack of surveillance, territorial

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control and a less-than-evident territorial ownership or marking of

the place lead to cases of heightened crime rates (Ibid: 116).

Territorial encroachment has a negative connotation with regard to

territorial acts. These are spatial acts of violating a territorial

boundary by persons or groups for varying time periods aiming at

disrupting ongoing activities or literally conquering the place and

changing its owner. Thus Violation involves unwarranted use of or

entry into a territory. No specific territory owner remains in this case

except for only a culturally defined class of permissible users.

Invasion involves bypassing boundaries and interrupting someone or

taking over a territory of another person or group either on a

temporary or a more permanent basis. Obtrusion occurs when a

claimant exhibits territorial demands in excess of what is socially

acceptable. Although primary territories are not given up readily,

public territories are often given up in response to encroachment

especially if alternatives exist (Altman 1975: 121).

In all cases, boundary crossings produce situations in which achieved

sense of privacy remains less than desired. This leads to the possible

readjustment to the boundary system. As encroachment occurs,

reactive responses may range from repetition of the markings to

warnings and physical defence. Preventive markers can involve

symbolic or actual physical barriers and boundaries (e.g. fences,

hedges, signs, controlled access and guards etc.). Houses may often

be designed and sites planned to prevent physical and visual

encroachment, while objects may be used to mark the threshold of

public territories. Both verbal and non-verbal means are deployed in

their various mixes; hostile or questioning looks, glances and

gestures serve to warn outsiders. Cultural mechanisms, such as local

dialect may also be used to keep off potential intruders (Ibid: 123). If

continuous or serious violation into primary territories does tend to

occur repeatedly, rapid escalation or reactive responses may take

place culminating into aggression (Ibid: 125).

4. Territorial hierarchy is experienced as territories situate themselves

within larger territories. Through diverse inhabiting acts by different

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actors, two or more territories may be housed under one large

territory without affecting the physical form. In addition, actors who

inhabit a particular territory maintain the right to control the

movements in and out of that territory as in a landlord-tenant

situation (Habraken 1998: 136).

5. Territorial depth is an important social indicator; it demonstrates

the underlying processes about how decisions are made on the

transformation of the built environment in the particular context of a

society. Two processes underscore these transformations. First, a

territorial power, subdivides its own space in a top-down manner to

create increased depth in order to enable more intensive use hence

leading to an increased density. Second, action is bottom-up, where a

number of “included territories” join together and appropriate their

own ‘personal’ space from more public space and hence increase

depth (Altman 1975: 214). Vernacular forms, which may also be

viewed as an outcome of communal preferences, also explain this

bottom up process. Although individual actors exercise individual

preferences, their acts typically conform to a socially determined

framework of rules and norms (Ibid: 227).

6. Depending on duration, territories may also be dynamic and its

territorial depth may cyclically increase and decrease with time (e.g.

a roadside stall) (Ibid: 160). Environmental order, regardless of its

particular form, is always a continuous chain of public spaces of

increasing territorial size (Ibid: 178). Territoriality is a complex

process that changes with time and circumstances. While certain

well-defined territories may exist, their boundaries may be flexible

and may shift and evolve in response to changing situations.

Territorial behaviours are also adjusted and readjusted over time and

work in combination with other behaviours (Ibid: 104).

7. Agents: In form hierarchies, physical parts and their configurations

are controlled by actors or agents. In territorial hierarchies, space is

controlled where form remains part of the controlled space. “Agents

controlling higher levels dominate agents controlling lower levels.

When higher-level agents control what goes into included territories,

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included agents must, as a rule, accept the imposed limitations on

what filters through the higher level” (Habraken 1998: 139).

Eventually, dwelling proves to be a territorial act of occupation. It may involve a

single house or a room. House-building, however remains a “form-making act within

acquired territory. The resulting house form always remains open to territorial

interpretation”. It is therefore, various interpretation of a single house type, such as

shops, bakeries, and other residential scale commercial activities are common

(Habraken 1998: 154). Extreme changes in social organization following initial

occupancy may also trigger unforeseen variations in the original use and form (Ibid:

155). Once form is present, just as a container, “life makes use of it, adjusting it and

adjusting to it, offering ever-changing territorial interpretations within it’s relatively

constancy”. Territorial interpretation of a given form hence may lead to new forms

and new meanings (Ibid: 156). Given a fixed territorial structure, different forms may

also be placed in it. Various built forms and variable “control distributions” may go

with the same territorial structure. The building may operate in either territorial depth

but may also be controlled by outside actors (Ibid: 171).

2.7 Control and the social construction of home: the framework

In light of prior discussions, a framework is proposed here that aims to explain how

(and with what spatio-physical implication) a segment of permanent migrants in the

third world city have continued to enjoy ownerships of land and dwellings amongst

widespread resource scarcities and even without any formal/legal title. In that, a ‘five-

stage’ literature review has been carried out, in which: (1) contextual works (in

Bangladesh and Khulna) have been reviewed; (2) global-level theoretical and

empirical works from allied disciplines were studied; (3) discussions have been made

about how home is socially constructed with further elaboration of the concept of

privacy; (4) the concept of control has been discussed as both an object and subject of

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privacy needs and practices; and (5) empirical-theoretical discussion on ‘territoriality’

has been used to establish ‘territorial practices’ as a way to studying various control

mechanisms. Figure 2.4 (overleaf) illustrates the conceptual derivation of ‘home as an

arena for various social controls’. It also identifies necessary indicators, depending on

which, a detailed study framework is proposed in the ‘Methodology’ chapter.

Figure 2.4: Conceptual model – “Control and Social Construction of Home” (prepared mainly

in accordance with Altman 1975, Habraken 1998 and Somerville 1997).

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Chapter 3: Methodology

3.1 Introduction

This chapter details out the strategies and instruments for carrying out the research.

Initially, it begins with the further elaboration of the stated problem in Chapter 1 that

helps a better substantiation of the primary research question. The sub-questions are

then derived in line with the stated objectives and with the help of the conceptual

framework. Each of the sub-questions is followed by a brief discussion about their

respective aims and field of data that each covers. This is followed by an introduction

to the context, here Khulna, the third largest urban agglomeration in Bangladesh.

Immediately follows an introduction to the particular migrant settlements to be

studied and rationale for their selection. Discussions on research type and strategy

come next, succeeded by a brief discussion on research subjects (and their selection

rationale). The next two sections briefly discuss the research instruments and data

analysis framework respectively. After that, a ‘study framework’ is prepared which

outlines indicators and the concerned variables essential for data collection.

3.2 Research questions

This research, depending on the earlier theoretical and empirical studies, is premised

on the fact that rural migrants’ home-making occurs at the interstices of the formally

planned city (Dovey 2012), as the particular socio-economic-spatial realities of the

third world city lead them to assume a unique ‘informal’ way of life (AlSayaad

2004). Considering the fact that many of these migrants have been living in Khulna

for more than two generations now and many have managed to ‘own’ a house or a

plot of land even in the absence of the formal sector, this research begins by assuming

that the building and spatial habits demonstrated by them are in fact manifestations of

their unrelenting negotiations with other socio-economic-political actors. Such

negotiations have remained vital in compensation for the formal sector’s absence in

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the delivery of land and dwelling units. Over the years, as demonstrated by Walton

(1992:132) and Watson (2009: 176) in similar third world contexts, the top down

policies have been implemented mainly to serve the formal sector economy and its

elitist proponents. This has been observed even in the ‘modern’ policies of the

European Colonia across the human settlements of the global south1. Yet, it is the

ordinary migrants marginalized by various forms of domination who still retain some

command to re-construct habitats (e.g. in the so called slums and informal

settlements), and play with and manipulate space to negotiate with authorities (as

described by Cupples 2009: 371 in similar contexts). In the present day, these

migrants have continued to influence the spatio-physical environments of the planned

city by transforming forms and spaces of their apparently ‘illegal’ habitats in a

manner described by Bayat (2000) as ‘silent encroachment’. These migrants may also

be engaged in activities in many visible forms and spaces (as in Tunas 2008) that

typically take place alongside formal sector developments and take advantage of the

‘loose’ formal system (Kudva 2009; Perara 2009). Ordinary people such as these

migrants make use of the apparently useless formal infrastructure of planning in

various imaginative and alternative ways which was not considered by the planners

initially (as highlighted by Koolhaas 2002: 179 and 184 in the case of Lagos).

Given these, a number of binary conditions (e.g. legality-illegality or formality-

informality) have come to coexist over the years, while it is the many spatio-political

manipulations of these binaries by both migrants and the elitist actors that have

guaranteed an urban home for the former and a greater political control of the

ordinary masses (e.g. migrants) by the latter. For this, often the formal bodies (e.g.

government offices, NGOs) act and operate informally, while the ‘informal’ migrants

try to obtain authorization from as many formal sector organizations as possible. A

1. Nahiduzzaman (2003) discusses a similar case of Bangladesh as elaborated in Chapter 4.

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mutually beneficial socio-political arrangement between ordinary migrants and socio-

economic-political elites thus remains at work. This contributes to the spatio-physical

transformation of migrants’ homes (Figure 3.1). To avail public/formal sector urban

services and amenities (e.g. housing) in their absolute deficiency in the context of

Khulna, socio-political relation with influential elites hence has remained crucial.

Both synchronic and diachronic studies are therefore required that aim to investigate

the different forms of negotiation between the actors, their spaces, of the rules, and

the way they affect the built environment of the concerned settlements during

modernization and industrialization in Khulna.

This understanding is what led to the

formation of the primary question in

Chapter 1: what socio-spatial

mechanisms explain many homeless

rural migrants’ successful re-

making of home in the urban

context of Khulna, despite the

failure of Governments and private

formal sectors to provide low-income

housing during modernization and

industrialization in the third world

nations? This requires a historical

research; which has already been

identified in Chapter 2. A deeper understanding of the larger socio-economic-political

context thus becomes essential to fully appreciate the settlement- and household-level

spatio-physical transformation. It is realized that this transformation of Khulna’s

urban form needs to be looked at and assessed in relation with the ‘modern’ socio-

political doctrines to enable a better understanding of the processes underlying the

Figure 3.1: Problem statement in graphics;

showing the social-relation (with elites) – access

to land/housing – built environment triangle.

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spatio-physical transformation at the level of migrant settlements. These considered,

the two sub-questions could be stated as in the following paragraphs:

Q1. In what ways have the ‘modern’ policy regimes contributed to the spatio-

physical transformation of Khulna’s urban form?

This question addresses the consequences of modernist land-related policies (and

politics) on the predominantly agrarian society of Bangladesh with a focus on

Khulna’s spatio-physical transformation. Here, ‘modern’ refers to the particular time

period that began with the post-Enlightenment England’s colonization of the Indian

Subcontinent in the mid-18th Century. It shows how a succession of top-down policies

targeting the agrarian countryside of Bengal (hence peasantry) had left grave

consequences for both its rural and urban areas. These transformations have also been

addressed in the case of Khulna. ‘Modern’ however also includes the postcolonial

policy environments in Bangladesh to date, which have all been influenced by global

neoliberal policy thinking focusing on economic growth, rational planning,

industrialization and need for modernization of the former European colonies. This

question therefore aims to assess how in the predominantly agrarian context of

Bangladesh, the market-driven land and housing policies by successive authoritative

regimes have deliberately created different forms of scarcity in the lives of peasant-

turned-migrants in Khulna. A premise becomes apparent where Khulna’s urban form

manifests as the outcome of the co-working of modernization-industrialization,

migration and politics triad.

Q2. What socio-spatial practices by the permanent migrant help control (hence

maintain ownership of) the spatio-physical boundaries of home during the

modernization-industrialization decades of Khulna?

This question is answered using a three-stage analysis of settlement history, spatial

practices and decision-making structure pertaining to the particular nature of spatial

82

and building practices in the context of Khulna’s migrant settlements. Individual

settlement histories are discussed under predefined categories of ownership, but

pointing out to the problems related to such absolute categorization as most

settlements share attributes of both legality (formal) and illegality (informality). With

regard to this challenging context, both private- and public-level spatial practices and

their consequences are highlighted. It also underscores the motivations behind such

particular acts/forms of territorialization by identifying possible economic,

demographic and cultural forces at work. Recognition of the roles of involved elitist

actors, particular socio-spatial rules guiding the building and construction practices

and an outline of the underlying decision-making structure by community members

supplements the prior findings.

3.3 Research location

Figure 3.2: (Left) Khulna (circled), in relation to Bangladesh and India (Kolkata can be seen

on the left hand side of Khulna); (right) administrative boundaries of Khulna – darker portion

is indicative of the present city boundary (Source: Dudek and Van Houtte 2008).

83

This research has been carried out in Khulna, the third largest city in Bangladesh with

a population of around 2million and with a density of 67,944/km2 within 45.65km

2 of

its municipal area alone (KCC 2010). With its 37th ranking amongst the world’s

fastest growing cities (Citymayors 2007), it also has the highest concentration of

urban poor amongst all the coastal towns and cities in Bangladesh (Ahmad 2005: 16).

Khulna has one of the largest concentrations of “poor settlements” in the country as

well (5080 of varying size and classes), with half a million people living there

presently (CUS-UNDP-KCC 2011; Figure 3.3). Most of these ‘poor’ however are

recognized as ex-migrants (KCC-LGED-UNDP 2009). Following statistics give a

contextual understanding of the economic status of these ‘informal’ poor in Khulna

(and in Bangladesh) with regard to their home ownership2.

1. More than 20% of the

urban dwellers are landless

slum-dwellers in Khulna

(KCC-LGED-UNDP

2009); amongst, 27% ‘own’

a house of some sort while

66% remain as tenants

(Ahmed 2005: 10).

2. More than 60% of the total

national stock is owned

property – rest belong

mostly to the central

government; more than

90% of these owned

properties are built by the

informal sector (GoB-ADB

1993: 2-4).

2. National level data is used where local level data was unavailable.

Figure 3.3: Present

Khulna characterized

by mosaic-like (dots)

distribution of ‘poor’

migrant settlements

within formal

developments, home to

half a million migrants

(KCC-LGED-UNDP

2009).

84

3. Low income groups constitute around 70% of the entire population

in larger cities like Dhaka but manage to enjoy only around 20% of

its total land area (Hoek-Smit 1998: 15-16 citing Islam 1986); in

terms of national average, less than 30% of these poor people are

actually owners of some kind of land. Other forms of tenure include

tenancy in private house and government housing, sub-tenancy, rent-

free stay, illegal occupation and pavement dwelling (WB 2007: 36).

The trend however is that the more expensive living in a city,

diminishing is the rate of ownership. In cities like Dhaka, around

53% of the migrants live in private slums, while the other 44% squat

on public land. Commonly, about 14m2 space is being enjoyed by a

family of five members (Afsar 2003: 4).

4. Average income for a migrant slum dweller in a typical Khulna slum

is between BDT3000-4000 (USD42-55) (Hasan 2003: 43); the

informal sector provides 85-90% of national urban employment

(ADB 2009: 13; 20); the contribution of informal sector to GDP is

around 63% (Ibid: 22).

3.4 Settlement-selection and settlement types

Considering the perspectives of the disciplines of economics and politics, the tenure

status of land or house, with its implications for personal control, is considered as the

most critical element that defines “what makes a house a home” (Johnson 1971, as

cited in Lawrence 1995: 55). Differences occur within and between cultures in terms

of ownership of houses (Ibid: 56). For example, the term home is used by Turner

(1976: 81) to indicate something to possess, while Hamdi (1991: 165), uses

‘ownership’ as an adjective to home. Similar can be said of other prominent scholars

such as Habraken (1998: 79) and Patton (1998: 268), who associate the terms

‘ownership’ and ‘tenure’ respectively to designate home. Similar has been echoed in

the works of De Soto (2001: 7-8). The conceptual model in Chapter 2 also identifies

‘control’ as the key element for home-making – pointing essentially to the need for a

secured tenure and hence the need for ownership as the key prerequisite for home-

85

making and continuity. This research remains interested in the migrant-dwellings and

settlements that have been owned, formed and maintained by the ordinary ‘ex-

peasant-turned-migrants’. Ten (10) migrant settlements (Figure 3.4: numbered dots)

of varying population size and land area (Figure 3.5) are hence selected based mainly

on the nature of ownership each of these settlements and their inhabiting migrant-

owners enjoy. The key area of interest remains in the ways each of these settlements

has succeeded to attain the present form of ownership using various socio-spatial

negotiations during the post-WWII years of modernization and industrialization in

Khulna.

The preference for this phase

of urbanization history is

simple. It is during these

particular years, two

significant global economic

doctrines (ISI and SAP) have

fundamentally affected the

spatio-physical environment

of this once little town of

Khulna by initiating

industrialization through the

establishment of a number of

large-scale public and private-

sector industries, chief

amongst which were Jute and

Shrimp processing industries

respectively (Figure 3.4:

Figure 3.4: KCC jurisdiction map; green dots

(numbered) show locations of 10 migrant settlements.

Red and yellow dots show locations of post-partition

(public sector, mainly jute) and post-SAP (private sector

export-oriented, mainly shrimp) industries respectively

(Source: Map courtesy KCC 2012).

Migrant Settlements

Post-partition industries

SAP-industries

4

2

1

5

3

6

7

9 8

10

0 1km

86

smaller dots). It is during this particular period of time, massive inflow of rural to

urban migrants (mainly as factory workers and industry-related ‘support’ workforce)

to Khulna surpassed all previous instances of urbanization. From 1961 to 1974,

during the first phase of industrialization when public-sector industries (mainly Jute)

were thriving, Khulna’s population grew from 60,000 to 420,000. The population

further rose to 850,000 in 1998 (from 550,000 in 1981) (KDA 2002: 40) owing

mostly to setting up of private sector shrimp processing industries (export oriented).

As discussed, it was during these two phases when most of these selected settlements

matured and became home to half a million low-income migrant population in

Khulna.

Figure 3.5: Growth of migrant settlements: alongside industries (post-partition: 1, 2, 4; post-

SAP: 7, 8, 9); on Bangladesh Railways land (3, 10); on site and service plot (6); on private

property of city periphery (5) (Source: Image courtesy Google Earth 2012).

1 6

2 7

3 8

4 9

10 5

87

3.5 Research considerations

This section outlines the strategies and instruments intended for this research. As part

of this proposed methodology, it covers the research type, research strategy and the

key considerations for data collection and analysis.

3.5.1 Context of research method

The research is essentially exploratory as it seeks to understand the ‘compensatory’

(and often alternative) socio-spatial processes underlying migrants’ home-making in

the ordinary third world city, and hence reveals the un-anticipated. In that, it assumes

a qualitative stand, using qualitative means for data collection and analysis and an

overall qualitative methodology. In a few occasions during analysis, some numbers

are referred to. But these numbers are not claimed to be representative; rather, these

are generated from the different phases of the fieldwork, and are intended only to

supplement the arguments and findings. The strategy for this research is a

combination of deduction and induction3, although it commences with the former.

Relying initially on a range of theoretical and empirical reviews from

multidisciplinary sources, it defines the ‘problem’ and proposes its own framework

(control-social construction of home framework in Chapter 2) to facilitate data

collection from the particular context of Khulna’s migrant settlements. With regard to

this framework, the systematic analysis of the initial findings in Chapters 4 and 5 lead

to the identification of a number of themes and threads, which are further analyzed

and refined to propose (inductively) a new theoretical area (Scarcity-negotiation) in

Chapter 6. This however, contributes to the original conceptual framework as well.

Eventually this research proposes a framework (Home-negotiated control) consisting

of a number of hypotheses – only to be tested further and hence to be developed into

a potential theoretical premise.

88

3.5.2 Strategy: combination of synchronic and diachronic

This research is both diachronic and synchronic. It relies on historical data for

constructing the backdrop against which the effects of various land-related policies

on ordinary peasants’ (and later migrants’) lives are assessed. A five-phased analysis

of historical trends (beginning with British colonization of Indian subcontinent in

1757 by the East India Company) is carried out using secondary sources. At the level

of settlements and households, histories of both dwelling- and settlement-

transformations are collected and accounted for. Focus is given on post-WWII

decades because this is when modern urban planning and industrialization started

taking place in Khulna. Historical information remains necessary for understanding

the various socio-spatial negotiations between different actors at these two levels of

migrant settlements. In both cases, primary and secondary sources are used

simultaneously to complement each other. Particularly at the level of households,

present spatial practices for territorial control by migrant-owners are also recorded

and analyzed in-depth. In some cases, migrant-landlords’ tenants’ spatial practices

are also collected and analyzed. Information is collected more in a biographic-

ethnographic manner using both architectural and non-architectural instruments. A

combination of these two approaches allows for a comprehensive understanding of

both depth and breadth of ordinary migrants’ home-making efforts and its associated

socio-spatial processes.

3.5.3 Types and levels of settlements

Investigations in Khulna’s migrant settlements, in-depth studies on households and

dwelling units, and their spatial transformation are used in this research to

demonstrate a correlation between land/housing politics and more successful

migrants’ socio-spatial negotiations. This research is hence scoped for studying types

3. Qualitative, open-ended, circular, iterative (generating and continually testing working

hypothesis), rooted in lived experience, flexible, changing design, knowledge generating

89

of migrant settlements at their different scale levels. As discussed earlier, it

commences by identifying a number of available types of low-income settlements in

Khulna, as these different types are considered as the centre of different home-

making efforts. Types are defined according to tenure status of the resident migrant.

Since ‘tenure-status’ is the ‘essential’ element for home-making, it remains, in this

research, the primary criteria for initially selecting and later categorizing of the

selected settlements. This different ownership types also benefit a comparative study

and reveal how different settlements facilitate home-making differently. For example,

a tenure-secured settlement, when compared against another with unsecured tenure

reveals of a different socio-spatial negotiation process. When assessed historically,

such comparative study between settlements reveals different forms of home-making

using different processes and with different spatio-physical consequence. This also

makes organization and categorization of similarities, differences and unique socio-

spatial attributes of each of the settlements and individual dwelling units possible.

Generally, socio-spatial aspects of migrants’ dwelling environments in Khulna are

assessed in relation to three hierarchical levels of home: ‘house’, ‘house-

neighbourhood’, and ‘settlement-city’. This is facilitated by the theoretical discussion

on home, which establishes home as a larger system beyond the mere level of the

house. There is however another level beyond the city (migrants’ rural home), which

is also referred to in a number of occasions; the primary aim of making reference to

this particular level is to observe whether or not and to what extent migrants’ present

socio-spatial practices are correlated with the practices of their rural place of origin.

Since migrancy associates multiple-belonging (e.g. migrants’ remain influenced by

both their place of origin and present domicile), spatio-physical outcome of migrants’

home-making efforts should therefore display some sort of ‘hybrid’ forms, spaces and

spatial practices. Considering the migrant as a ‘vehicle’ of multiplicity and

and participatory (Jennings 2005: 29).

90

movement, it seeks for the spatial-physical manifestations of a possible relation

between migrants’ rural places and practices within their present dwelling

environments.

Additionally, literature reviews are carried out to understand the national-level land

and housing policy environments in relation with dwelling-level spatio-physical

transformations – thus maintaining a constant reference with supra-national (global)

socio-economic policies and their consequences.

3.5.4 Assessing spatio-physical to understand socio-political

Although this research does not assume his methodology, it shares the same

‘environment first’ position of Hillier (2008: 216), which views “social processes” as

evidence of spatial forms in the built environment. Based on the conceptual model

and its spatio-physical variables, it commences initially by collecting

data/information on the spatio-physical attributes and looks into the above mentioned

levels of built environment that migrants produce. It is only simultaneously or later,

the social mechanisms (social activities, interactions and structures) are assessed

against these already recognized spatio-physical attributes. Data collection and

analysis focuses on spatio-physical and socio-political aspects (Figure 3.6).

3.5.5 A perspective from below

The research assumes a more ‘bottom-up’ approach that takes account of migrants’

interpretation of their own socio-spatial environments pertaining to their home-

making. Although additional information on urban history, policy environments and

elite actors’ roles are gathered using both primary and secondary sources and

methods, migrant spaces and their physical forms remain areas of primary interest.

For an understanding of migrants’ lived spaces and forms, their own versions of their

home environments become crucial. And particularly considering the contextual

91

factors (local cultural aspects, mid-sized city, Muslim majority locality etc.) and a

lack of research on rural migrants’ dwelling environments in the third world city, a

bottom-up approach is assumed appropriate for this research.

3.6 Research population and sampling design

3.6.1 ‘Permanent migrant’ as subject

This research is primarily interested in the dwelling environments of the more

successful and permanent of the migrants in Khulna. The subjects for this research

are the migrants who were once-homeless in their rural home, and later migrated to

Khulna and have been living with their families in this mid-sized third world city for

at least two generations. By using the term ‘successful’, particular reference is made

to those migrants who despite their dubious tenure status (illegal or lease-holding

without documents) currently enjoy some form of ownership and possession of a

piece of land, or a dwelling unit (preferably constructed using permanent materials)

or both. Especially considering that these particular segment of the migrated

population is unlikely to go back to their villages since many of them does not have

any land or homestead to return to, their selection for this research gives an

opportunity to understand their inevitable home-making efforts in Khulna.

Other forms of less-permanent migrants are not of interest to this research

considering their variable presence, lack of belonging, non-availability of data and

time constraint. And albeit many nature-driven forced migration (IOM 2009: 260-

262) and seasonal ‘pushes’ continue to send people to cities like Khulna, such

movements do not necessarily imply that these ‘neo-movers’ would stay permanently

(especially considering the recent developments in transport/communication

networks; see Hakim 2010: 72). All these short term or iterative movements however

demand for additional research.

92

Since there are no established parameters to define ‘permanent’ in relation to

migrancy, the criteria of the ‘two generations’ in fact places a useful bracket to

include the significant decades for this research – belonging to global socio-economic

policy thinking under Neoliberal conditions. This becomes particularly important

because it is during these decades under market economy when most notable rural-to-

urban exodus in history took place in the third world cities. As the pace of rural-

urban migration is believed to have decelerated (Hogan and da Cunha 2001: 7736), it

becomes crucial to find out about this particular generation of migrants’ assimilation

process, who came to Khulna in response to a particular phase under market

economy, yet denied of any residence by the proponents of it (i.e. formal authorities

who decided to go for market economy instead of retaining a welfarist stance).

3.6.2 Units of analysis and sampling quantum

The primary unit of analysis for this research is the individual migrant household. For

that, 34 dwelling units (4-5persons/household) are studied. These are selected from

10 different settlements, categorized according to the nature of tenure enjoyed by the

resident migrants living there. Individual history of each of these settlements is

collected focusing on their spatio-physical transformation in relation with the socio-

political forces. An additional 57 households (4-5persons/household) were surveyed

during the pilot fieldwork that helped refine the final data collection framework and

also the triangulation of the finally collected data for better validity. Another 10 focus

group discussions were also conducted in each of the settlements. Finally, a total of 6

key personnel were interviewed that includes a KDA Urban Planner, an Ex-

Councillor from present opposition party (BNP), a UPPRP personnel (Settlement

Improvement Assistant or SIA), an urban historian, one senior resident of Khulna (an

Ex-refugee from Kolkata, and later Jute Mills employee), and one shrimp industry-

owner.

93

For selecting particular migrant owners, targeted sampling has been used4. Initially,

snowballing technique was used by establishing contact with one migrant and later to

reach other migrants from his/her same regional origin using his/her social network.

While selecting migrant-owners and their households, variety was maintained. For

example, migrant owners were selected according to religion (Muslim, Hindu and

Christian), gender (male or female headed households), or headship (leader of the

community) and ethnicity (Bihari or Bangali). It was ensured that households with

variable in-house income generation sources (e.g. presence of tenants, shop-houses

etc.) are also included in the study of individual dwelling units.

3.7 Data collection: strategy and tools

Considering the units of analysis and the sorts of data required, this research

primarily makes use of a biographic approach (using a combination of social and

architectural methods) for collecting in-depth information on selected households. In

addition to this, a number of supplementary instruments are also used for collecting

both architectural and social data/information. Phased-out and sequenced fieldtrips

remained the main strategy for data collection. A total of 12 months out of a total 48-

months PhD candidature were used for data collection through a number of fieldtrips

to the aforementioned migrant settlements in Khulna. In terms of the fieldtrips, a

reconnaissance fieldwork was initially carried out in the first year of PhD

candidature. A second exploratory survey was conducted in the second year; Annex:

Tables 5, 6, 7 give details of all of these field-trips. In all cases, different settlements

(according to tenure types) were looked for, resident migrants were discussed with

and social networks were established. These trips also helped identify a few threads

and themes, which, during the final phase of data collection appeared useful as they

4. Targeted sampling is a prescriptive sampling procedure, and to some extent purposive as

well, which is used in the field as a means of systematic targeting to reach specific

subjects (Wilson 2005: 49-50) as required for this present research (i.e. permanent

‘successful’ migrants).

94

provided with necessary directions to further modify and amend the preliminary data

collection framework. Two more field trips (5-months each) were carried out in the

final two years of candidature. A 6-months evaluation period between these two

phases was planned and carried out. This helped assess the quality and quantity of the

collected data, and also the appropriateness of the data collection instruments for the

first phase of the final fieldwork. This helped make necessary adjustments for the

final phase. Following sections briefly outline the data collection methods and the

tools/instruments used in this research.

3.7.1 Literature review

A number of relevant literatures were reviewed initially for problem identification. In

addition, further reviews were conducted to construct the conceptual model in

Chapter 2. To facilitate the understanding of national and international policy regimes

particularly concerning the land and housing sectors in Bengal and Bangladesh, a

review of historic documents and relevant literature were used as secondary sources

in Chapter 4. Archived materials (e.g. historical maps of Khulna) were also used as

necessary.

3.7.2 Life history and everyday life

Biographic research “seeks to understand the changing experiences and outlooks of

individuals in their daily lives, what they see as important, and how to provide

interpretations of the accounts they give of their past, present and future” (Roberts

2002: 1). Biographic method particularly involves life stories and oral history (Miller

2008: 61), which this research used mainly for household-level and settlement-level

data collection respectively. Considering migrancy (whose both past and present

home-making efforts are essential), both methods proved useful since both of them

seek to provide accounts of “how people make sense of their lived experiences in the

construction of individual and social identity”. The contextual location of a life story

95

also allows exploring “the generative interplay between individuals and culture that

characterize a life history”. By positioning descriptions of everyday life within the

contexts in which they occur, life history narratives convey a sense of how individual

lives are socially constructed (Gough 2008: 484).

Everyday life techniques hence seek to understand “social experience based on how

people do and experience social life”. It studies social interaction in a natural

environment, and provides a “realistic reflection of life rather than an oversimplified

and generalized version” (Boylorn 2008: 306). It focuses on details and seemingly

insignificant occurrences that collectively contribute to the understanding of how a

situation, a phenomenon or an occurrence is interpreted and experienced. This

method is particularly chosen because it encourages “diversity”. It is widely used

“among marginalized groups to privilege their personal perspectives and viewpoints

that might otherwise be silenced and misinterpreted” (Ibid: 307). For this research,

information on everyday practices for personal space and territorial control was both

collected using thematic semi-structured interviews, field notes and non-participant

observation (no active participation by researcher)5.

3.7.3 Mapping and architectural drawings

The locations of migrant settlements noted for spatial practices in the migrant

households were mapped in Khulna. Other sites, which are of importance for

migrants’ everyday livelihoods (e.g. sites with religious significance or sites for

economic production), are also identified in the settlement-level maps. With

reference to the indicators identified in Chapter 2, migrants’ building activities and

spatial practices at household-neighbourhood sections and individual settlements are

also recorded. Zeisel (1984: 89-90)’s techniques for “observing physical traces” are

5. This method is particularly highlighted by Altman (1975: 127) for territoriality studies.

96

hence used for particularly studying the house interiors and the house-neighbourhood

sections to find out the spatio-physical ‘traces’ of migrants’ various territorial

behaviours, practices and rules – that have rather consciously or unconsciously been

“left behind”. These are both identified and documented. A number of questions such

as “how an environment got to be the way it is”, “what decisions its decision-makers

and builders made about the place”, “how people actually use it”, “how that

particular environment meets the needs of its users” – were considered while

illustrations and detailed architectural drawings were prepared particularly for the

house-neighbourhood sections of migrant settlements. In addition, annotated

diagrams and field notes were taken alongside the architectural drawings. Ample

photographs and video recordings were taken equally of house interiors and house

forms, neighbourhood sections and of the overall settlements. These proved

beneficial (supplementary) later during the off-site refinement and finalization of

architectural drawings and diagrams.

3.7.4 Community level group discussion

Focus Group Discussions (FGD), which capture real-life (qualitative) data in a

participatory social environment, are conducted in the presence of a small group.

FGDs help “learn about the biographies and life structures of group participants”; in

the presence of a ‘moderator’ (here the researcher), information from the participants

are drawn out on topics which are of interest to the research (Berg 2001: 111). FGDs

were used for collecting settlement history mainly, although some helped understand

the spatial practices as well. FGDs were conducted with the non-participating

households. For this particular research, FGDs helped draw out the same information

on settlement history (oral history), social relations and community (decision-

making) structure but from a group’s perspective, which individuals (household)

provided later. Thus it helped better triangulation of the same household-level data on

various socio-spatial aspects.

97

3.7.5 Key informant interview

As discussed in the previous section, a number of informants (other than the

migrants) were interviewed using a thematic semi-structured questionnaire. KDA’s

Urban Planner was interviewed to understand the actual planning process by KDA

and grasp KDA’s ‘real’ motivation behind the way they plan. The Ex-Councillor

from present opposition party (BNP) was also interviewed since in many occasions

his name came up as a patron while working in settlements 2 and 3. His interview

was also necessary to understand a mainstream politician’s view of these settlements

and his role in their decision-making structure. Similar remains true of the shrimp

industry-owner whose socio-political role in the operation and sustainability of

settlements 2 and 3 was of interest. The UPPRP official (SIA) was interviewed to

collect initial working information on various tenure types and cross check the

validity of the primary findings following the pilot surveys. The urban historian was

interviewed to cross check the validity of secondary data on Khulna, which are used

particularly in Chapter 4. Finally, the senior resident was interviewed to understand

the context of post-WWII refugee movement, his settling down process in Khulna as

part of a refugee family from Kolkata and also to understand the housing condition of

the public sector Jute Mills where he was an employee.

3.8 Data analysis and interpretation

Data on Khulna’s migrant settlements is analyzed covering three spatio-physical

levels (household, neighbourhood and settlement), while the findings span across

chapters 4 and 5. For initial analysis and categorization of data/information, three

particular methods are used in this research. These are descriptive morphology (focus

on socio-political-spatial history of settlement transformation), everyday spatial

practices and social world analysis. Commonly recurring themes and threads in

chapters 4 and 5 are finally interpreted in Chapter 6, using common and disparate

codes, categories, similar phrases, and patterns of relationships in terms of spatial

98

practices. In all analysis however, reference is

constantly maintained with the roles of involved

agents/actors, social practices, customs, rules and

decision-making structures (Figure 3.6). The term

socio-spatial is used frequently throughout this

research much like an oxymoron. All spatio-

physical indicators for grasping the territorial

practices by the migrants therefore are

supplemented by social indicators.

3.8.1 Settlement morphology (settlement history)

In built environment studies, Urban Morphology is defined as a science of studying

“the material built-form of urban landscapes and…explaining variations in urban

form through historical processes and social agency” (Bauer 2006: 316). Urban form

and its processes of formation and transformation are therefore defined by the acts of

‘agents’6. The interest here is then in those who have agency in the urban landscape,

and how much influence they exert in matters of decision-making, both individually

and as groups. Urban transformation is traced here by examining the nature of

everyday changes occurring to built environment (e.g. incremental expansions over

time) rather than by authoritative plans. In the historical studies of urban form, the

concern for agency also prove vital as it recognizes cultural and social processes

shaping urban landscapes in the past and also as it links particular periods of urban

formation and transformation to certain agents (as in Ibid: 67). Considering that urban

morphology aims to “explain the mechanisms of evolution or creation and

transformation of urban forms” (Levy 1999: 81), the recognition of agents’

contribution and the diachronic reading into the spatio-physical transformation of

6. The ‘direct’ agents are the landowners, developers, architects/planners, and whose

activities can be examined by using documentary sources.

Figure 3.6: The correlation

between ‘social’ and ‘spatial’ in

the analysis of collected data.

99

individual migrant settlements and house-neighbourhood fabric in Khulna seem

appropriate.

This leads to the preparation of maps, plans and sections, and a description of

settlement/household transformation history (descriptive morphology). A descriptive

approach, although supplemented by present analytical maps and photographs, makes

sense because of a lack of historic morphological maps of these settlements. Analysis

of Khulna’s overall urban transformation helps identify the historical land/housing

policy environments and show how they can be viewed as deliberate constructions by

powerful regimes with political implications. An analysis of individual settlement

histories, which classifies them according to existing tenure categories, also advances

this claim; a further analysis identifies problems with this categorization.

3.8.2 Behavioural regularities of everyday life

There is the individual lifeworld and the collective structure of shared meanings that

are derived from the lived experience of everyday practice (Knox 1995: 217). It is

through the actual day to day activities and strategies that people negotiate “shared

everyday realities, routines and ideas” (Gurney 1999). In terms of the research

question on ‘territorial practices’, the built form may suggest of a territory, but it is

the ongoing acts of occupation that fix and maintain the actual extent of claim. The

actual boundary is indicated less by the acts of building but more by the lower-level

configurations and parts by the everyday acts of individuals or groups (Habraken

1998: 130). In addition to descriptive morphology, Everyday life method is also

chosen for this research because of its focus on details, and on the sameness and

difference. It also makes connections and associations between emergent and

repetitive themes, and make comparisons between existing theories and territorial

practices by the migrants to control various boundaries of their urban home. Everyday

life approach is also useful for analyzing qualitative data since it enables the

100

identification of themes and threads amongst otherwise “monotonous” daily life

occurrences (Boylorn 2008: 307).

The social-lifeworld

thus remains part a

longitudinal study

where the present day

practices are viewed as

part of a socio-spatial

temporality. Hence, for

analysis, this

temporality of social

life is broken down

into different

interrelated levels (as in Knox 1995: 217). Table 3.1 (column 4: highlighted) shows

three hierarchical levels of analysis, of which the “dialectics between institutions and

daily life” would already be addressed by the descriptive morphological history of

settlements. The latter two levels are considered suitable particularly for the analysis

of in-house and house-neighbourhood level spatial practices of the present day. This

analysis of everyday life data involves identification of details (spatial activities,

marking of spatial boundaries, socio-spatial compromises for social practices,

community decision-making structure etc.), descriptions of phenomenon (here

substantiated by detailed architectural drawings and diagrams), and comparative

analysis between these findings according to selected themes.

3.8.3 Social-world analysis

The third method is the analysis of migrants’ social world where the social

component of the built environment is expressed through social actions and

Long-term

processes

Life-span Daily life

Long-

term

processes

Institutional

time

History

Coupling of

history and

life history

Dialectics

between

institutions and

daily life

Life-span Life history Relation between

life strategies and

daily life

Daily life Daily life Day by day

routines

(time use)

Figure 3.7: Interrelation between various dimensions of

temporality (Source: Knox 1995: 217 citing Simonsen 1991).

101

Figure 3.8: A typology of informal relationships (Source: Herbert and Thomas 1990: 262).

interactions. As Herbert and Thomas (1990: 261)’s model (Figure 3.7) points out, a

study into such interactions takes account of a number of origins and destinations and

also of the flows (e.g. past influence from rural times in the migrants’ lives).

Theoretically, sociable relationships are purposeful and voluntary; they exclude

business or contractual transactions, while relations are based on systems of exchange

and familial/kinship ties. Attention is given to the different roles (of the involved

agents) that bring into play varying levels of social interaction. Some of these roles

may be separated from another as others may well overlap but each contributing to

the multiplicity of social relationships which form the base of interaction (Ibid: 262).

For the present research, ideas are taken from this above model considering the

presence of a number of agents/actors in the different migrant settlements and the

way these agents have been contributing to settlement sustainability even if most of

them are viewed as ‘illegal’. This method of analysis is used to identify particular

actors/agents and their particular nature/level of influence in community’s decision-

making structure and their diverse forms across different migrant settlements (as in

Chapter 5, Section 5.4).

3.9 Study framework

Table 3.2 summarizes the overall methodology for this research in light of the earlier

discussions. Necessary indicators and variables are also mentioned.

102

Table 3.1: Study framework for proposed research

Questions

Socio-spatial practices at different levels of migrant

settlements to control spatio-physical boundaries of

home (hence maintain ownership) during post-

WWII decades under modernization and

industrialization

Khulna’s spatio-

physical

transformation under

modernity

Indicators

Variables

Sub-

variables

Subjects

Analysis

method

Sampling

quantum &

unit(s)

Instruments

Territorial practices for

boundary control

Decision-making

processes

Settlement

transformation T

erri

tori

al o

ccup

atio

n

and

per

son

aliz

atio

n

Nee

d f

or

terr

ito

rial

izat

ion

Dy

nam

ics

of

terr

ito

rial

bo

un

dar

y

Act

ors

Ru

les

Ter

rito

rial

hie

rarc

hy

Dec

isio

n m

akin

g

stru

ctu

re

Urb

an l

evel

sp

atio

-

ph

ysi

cal

tran

sfo

rmat

ion

Ind

ivid

ual

set

tlem

ent

lev

el s

pat

io-p

hy

sica

l

tran

sfo

rmat

ion

Per

sona

l sp

ace

and

pri

mar

y t

erri

tory

Ter

rito

rial

pra

ctic

e an

d p

ub

lic

terr

ito

ries

Boun

dar

ies

bet

wee

n s

ettl

emen

ts a

nd

ou

tsid

e w

orl

d

Con

textu

al a

spir

atio

ns

Incr

emen

tal

gro

wth

Inco

me

gen

erat

ion

So

cial

gai

ns

Neg

oti

atio

n o

f te

rrit

ori

al b

oun

dar

ies

(Acc

ord

ing t

o t

ime,

chan

gin

g d

emog

raph

ic

circ

um

stan

ces

and c

ult

ura

l cu

sto

ms)

Set

tlem

ents

, nat

ure

of

ten

ure

and

inv

olv

ed a

cto

rs

Rule

s fo

r n

ewer

co

nst

ruct

ion

Rule

s fo

r ex

ten

sion

of

exis

ting

buil

din

gs

Rule

s fo

r co

mm

un

ity l

evel

co

nst

ruct

ion a

nd s

pac

e u

se

Cu

stom

ary n

orm

s an

d c

ult

ura

lly

app

roved

pra

ctic

es

Typ

e o

f le

ader

ship

/hea

dsh

ip &

lev

el o

f sp

atia

l co

ntr

ol

Hie

rarc

hic

al d

ecis

ion

mak

ing

str

uct

ure

Var

iati

on

s in

dec

isio

n m

akin

g s

tru

ctu

re

Evo

luti

on

of

sett

lem

ents

(Mig

ran

t-te

nan

ts’

arri

val

an

d d

emog

raph

y;

nat

ure

of

ten

ure

; p

atro

niz

ing

act

ors

and

thei

r co

ntr

ibu

tion

)

Gro

wth

tre

nd

(Set

tlem

ent

size

an

d s

pat

ial

dis

trib

uti

on

; sp

atia

l

rela

tio

n w

ith i

ndu

stri

al/e

cono

mic

pro

duct

ion

sit

es

Pla

nnin

g a

nd

po

licy

env

iro

nm

ent

(Po

licy

; m

aste

r pla

n;

by

-law

s)

Migrant households; migrant community (settlement-wise)

groups; political leaders; NGO personnel

Political leaders, NGOs,

urban historian, planning bureaucrats

Settlement and dwelling history; everyday territorial practices;

social world analysis

Urban history; descriptive

morphology

- 10 migrant settlements

- 10 FGDs (7-8persons/group) - 55 households

- 34 house-neighbourhood tissue

- Urban Khulna

- 10 migrant settlements

- 6 key informants

Architectural drawings, maps,

diagrams, illustrations,

photographs, videos

Structured and semi-

structured interviews,

FGDs, diagrams

Literature review,

structured interviews,

maps, diagrams

Po

st-C

olo

nia

l

Ea

st-B

eng

al

&

Ban

gla

des

h

(19

48

-Pre

sen

t)

√ √ √

Pre

-Co

lon

ial

Ben

ga

l un

der

Bri

tish

Ru

le

(17

57

-194

7)

X X √

Theoretical

threads

Negotiated control of the boundaries of urban home

as a response

Scarcity as a

constructed condition

103

Chapter 4: Urban form in Khulna

4.1 Introduction

The primary aim of this chapter is to situate migration-driven urban spatio-physical

transformation of Khulna within the wider politico-economic context. This chapter

describes how various policy ideas, conceived at the global level, have continued to

influence local level policy thinking, leaving grave consequences particularly for the

land administration sector in agrarian Bangladesh. This chapter hence focuses on

understanding this historical backdrop, i.e. the local (municipal and national)

economic and political circumstances in relation with the global, which eventually

resulted in mass emigration and became the key driver for the evolution of third

world urban form as experienced in Khulna.

Based on both primary and secondary data, discussions begin with an examination of

the impacts of post-enlightenment Europe’s modern socio-economic policies (to

promote trade and maximize their own economic gains) on the predominantly

agrarian socio-spatial structure of Bengal1. The following section highlights the

socio-spatial consequences of ‘modernization doctrines’ on the landscapes of a

decolonized (post-WWII) East Pakistan (pre-independence name of Bangladesh).

These doctrines, however, were again promoted by the western think-tank as a ‘cure’

for their economically ailing former colonies. Discussions on a post-liberation

Bangladesh make up the final sections, where impacts of globalization and the free

market on the rural and urban socio-spatial structures are highlighted. For all of these

phases, national-level consequences are supplemented by evidences of Khulna’s

spatio-physical transformation. Finally, the summary section draws upon the

1. Bengal refers to the Mid- and South-Eastern deltaic location of the undivided Indian

subcontinent – formed at and around the estuarine confluence of the great Ganges-

Brahmaputra river system. This area, following the partition between India and Pakistan

in 1947 was divided into two separate provinces for these two nations assuming the

104

argument that urban spatial transformation in Khulna (and indeed in Bangladesh) can

be seen as a consequence of deliberately manufactured policy environments where

resources were unevenly distributed, and where specific groups of people or their

settlements were denied access to scarce resources (chief amongst which is land)

while prioritizing and often fulfilling the objectives of various top-down projects of

elitist actors (both local and global). Population displacement of various forms

(including rural-urban migration) and their settling down process can also be seen as

a product of such unevenness, inequalities and manipulation of insufficiencies.

4.2 Modern doctrines of transformation

4.2.1 Bengal under East India Company (1757-1947)

In order to maximize British commercial expansion across Europe, market-oriented

consumerist policies were conceived in Great Britain following ‘industrial revolution’

(Xenos 1989: 8). It is through the East India Company (EIC), this policy was infused

into its Indian colony (which Bengal was part of) leading to a systematic replacement

of its traditional agricultural products (silk and cotton). Cropping pattern was altered;

cultivation of ‘cash crops’ such as indigo and jute were prioritized to feed British

mainland industries and benefit their export to European markets (D’Costa 1994:

701-702). British planters, to maximize production of indigo, forced the local

peasants to reduce the cultivation of rice and cotton (Nahiduzzaman 2003: 58). EIC,

which initially monopolized Muslin2 trade, later preferred creating a new market for

British textile products following industrial revolution by replacing the same Muslin.

Hundreds of handloom factories were force-closed while those who resisted had their

fingers and arms amputated (Ibid: 48). EIC’s reversal of trade policy – from buying

export-oriented finished products to buying raw agricultural materials for being

names West-Bengal and East- Pakistan respectively. Following a bloody war, East-

Pakistan once again got liberated from Pakistan in 1971, which now is Bangladesh.

2. A high-quality cotton-based fabric produced by East-Bengal weavers that were worn even

by the European royalty.

105

processed in Kolkata and to be sent to Britain later – led to the “de-urbanization at the

periphery3 and overcrowding at the old core” as experienced in larger urban centres

like Dhaka. Heavy duties were also levied by the Company on locally manufactured

agriculture-based products (Ghafur 2010: 3-4).

Role of smaller urban centres, which were once producing cotton- or silk-based

products themselves through the efforts of traditional craftsmen and artisans, hence

were reduced to raw material collection and export-oriented processing. “Instead of

serving as nodes for stimulating growth in peripheral areas, cities in Bengal served as

satellites to the ports that were themselves satellites to the metropolitan economy”.

Port-oriented suction process thus had distorted urbanization of the Eastern part of

Bengal (D’Costa 1994: 702). A more exploitative relation, as in a centre and

periphery was created replacing the long established symbiotic one. Railways

connected only those parts of East Bengal to Kolkata that used to produce products of

British interest. These deliberate acts of “supply chain disruption” and “dislocation of

industries” in most parts of the country created a disjuncture between raw materials

and their local industrial base (Opcit.).

Meanwhile in the rural hinterlands, further socio-economic disruptions were also

taking place. To raise revenue base for EIC, a new breed of revenue collectors called

the Zamindar was officialised through ‘Permanent Settlement Act’ in 1793 (Ray and

Ray 1975: 82-83). Although Zamindars acted similarly as local-level tax collectors

for the earlier Mughal rulers, their roles and territories had now been re-defined under

EIC in the shape of British ‘estate and landlord’ system. The idea was to raise the

‘productivity’ of land by identifying all land as taxable property. Permanent

Settlement Act thus dispossessed peasants of their ancestral land that they were in

3. Nahiduzzaman (2003: 48) also reports that shutting down of Muslin factories left

hundreds of associated artisans and traders jobless; most of them went back to agriculture

106

control for generations; ‘land’ suddenly became a commodity – the “property of the

Zamindar (while) the landlord became the landowner; land now was bourgeois

landed property” (Bose 1986: 4). This act also led to the situation of “endless

exploitation and repression” in terms of relation between Zamindari and its subjects

(peasants). Although Permanent Settlement Act fixed a maximum revenue collection

slab for the Zamindar, it did not do so for the peasants. The revenue collection right

of the Zamindar hence left him free to charge any amount of rent from his peasant

subjects (Nahiduzzaman 2003: 51). The EIC also abolished the village Panchayet

system and other traditional social institutions, which the Mughal rulers effectively

used “to promote social stability and perpetuate the existing order” (Ibid: 48).

Through the inaction of Permanent Settlement Act, class division was also elevated to

a new height in an already predominantly class-based society. Most Zamindars came

from former Hindu royalty or from the ritually high-ranking literati of Hindu priests,

scribes or physicians (Bose 1986: 84). On the other hand, most of the Raiyats

(cultivator peasants) were Muslim (Nahiduzzaman 2003: 49). Two other important

groups also became important: Jotedar and Bapari/Mahajan, and Bhadralok. The

Jotedar were the rich Raiyats who held large chunks of land through long-term lease

from the city-living Absentee Zamindar4; who would later sub-lease this land to

peasants and sharecroppers, and lend money to peasants in high interest. The Bapari

and Mahajan were the traditional trader/merchant class5 who became enormously

wealthy after being appointed by the EIC to supply raw products and marketing

European commodities. Since EIC had never allowed this class to become their

competitors by setting up industries themselves, later in the early 19th century many

amongst these wealthy merchants purchased portions of Zamindari from the

while the rest had to take up other related jobs in crowded urban centres.

4. Who would actually live in the city/towns and visit his estate in selected times of a year.

5. Some were also the former Nayabs, i.e. the local administrators for absentee Zamindars.

There were also the Mathbars – the local community leaders (Ray and Ray 1975: 84).

107

declining larger ones, and became petty Zamindar themselves (Ibid: 49). However,

the situation of common peasant remained unchanged, if not declined.

Khulna, once a small trading centre for wood, fish, honey and salt, grew in

importance after EIC first set up a riverside ‘guard post’. It was followed by the

setting up an Indigo factory near the existing bazaar, re-named later as ‘Charlie’s

haat’ after the EIC official Mr. Charlie (Figure 4.1: left). This officer brought along

with him from India, a tribal group called the Harijan6 – a lower Hindu caste, who

formed the main labour force for him as locals were not willing to engage into indigo

farming initially.

The growing importance of Khulna drew in a batch of rich immigrants from

Rajasthan known as Marwari who soon became the key driver for Khulna’s economy

and patron to many of Khulna’s spatio-physical transformations (e.g. by making

donations to erect academic and religious buildings, public parks; building housing

6. Harijans can still be found living in clusters in different areas of Khulna employed mostly

in locally perceived ‘lower-level works’ such as sweepers and cleaners. One such group

has been identified by this research, who are living in one of the 10 studied settlements

(Pach No. Ghat – Harijan Para).

of

Figure 4.1: Khulna urban-form: (left) pre-colonial; (right) under EIC

(Source: Reconstructed after Miah 2002).

108

Figure 4.2: (Left & middle) BIWTA rest-house built on the remains of Mr. Charlie’s

residence and office; (right) Colonia-influenced house once owned by Mr. Shailen Ghosh, an

affluent Hindu Zamindar who left Khulna after partition; house was later taken over by

Muslim League leader Mr. Khan-E-Sabur (Source: left & middle – Apurba Kumar Podder;

right – Hafizur Rahaman).

for their own etc.). The Marwari, located mainly in Boro Bazaar and Daulatpur

(Figure 4.1: right), controlled most businesses in Khulna, and followed their own

traditional way of life. It was these people, who also introduced Panchayet (a

community body of elites) to existing Khulna society (Miah 2002). Khulna’s

proximity to Kolkata (capital of British East India: 1772-1911) turned it into

Kolkata’s most important hinterland.

With Kolkata’s industrialization, Khulna became its key supply centre for raw

agricultural products including jute. As Figure 4.1 (left) shows, the initial

introduction to modernization by then had already instigated different forms of

population movement and subsequent spatial transformation in Khulna. Rural

landless peasants had already started forming small village-like clusters on this

flourishing town’s periphery, while Marwari enclaves, shop-houses and warehouses

were erected near river-side trading locations (Ghats). Non-white elite class (traders

and Zamindars) were also erecting lavish ‘Bungalow hybrids’ along the colonial

enclave to demonstrate their intimacy with the colonial masters. These also helped

them express their newly acquired socio-economic supremacy over the rest both

spatially and materially (Reza 2008: 15; Figures 4.1 and 4.2).

109

4.2.2 Bengal under British Raj (1858-1947)

The taking over of India from EIC by the British Empire led to some other significant

moments of scarcity in the lives of the ordinary. Following industrial revolution,

towns and cities were to be reconceptualised as distribution centres for mainland

industrial products while “docile city dwellers (to) becoming potential consumers”

(Ghafur 2010: 4-5). Again, ‘improvements’ were uneven at the level of the city; only

the economically and politically suitable centres (such as Kolkata, Dhaka, and later

Khulna) were under consideration. However, this mode of thinking about the city

dweller and driven by the “Victorian zeal for cleaner habitat” led the colonial rulers to

a feeling that the Indian society, now living in towns and cities, need to be sanitized

through “sanitation-taxation-pacification”. This of course enhanced security and

surveillance for the elite class while eventually creating a deeply divided

(Chakravorty 2000: 65) ‘dual’ city7 (as in ‘white city’ and ‘black town’; see Bissell

2011: 210). These division lines or the ‘cleavages’ of duality was characterized by

differences of settlements’ physical quality, services, used technology, social

structure and way of life in general (Ibid: 209). This duality was evident in Khulna

too (Figures 4.1 and 4.2: right). A fortified colonial enclave could by now be noticed

along the riverside, in contrast with a number of village-clusters on the faraway

western side of the city.

As Miah (2002) reports, these ‘informal’ villages were home to most of the city

dwellers. Essential for Khulna’s economy, these villages housed the service people

for the colonial masters and wage labourers for river-based trading. Yet municipal

services were never extended to them. However, at the first half of the nineteenth

century, another new class of English educated (westernized) government officials

7. See Figures 4.2 and 4.3; they show how the scheme of a ‘divided city’ was articulated

even in Khulna during Colonial rules.

110

emerged who were called the Bhadralok8 (read ‘gentlemen-class’) (Nahiduzzaman

2003: 50). This group, attuned to colonial doctrines, also called for an improved and

western-style living condition (e.g. planned residential areas) prompting a Master

Plan adoption for major cities (Ghafur 2010: 4). They mimicked British Master’s and

Zamindar’s bungalows and erected them alongside the ‘white enclave’. In 1884,

Khulna was declared a municipality, while a rail network was laid out to connect it

with Kolkata promoting further riverside trading activities and formation of newer

habitats9.

4.2.3 Bengal as East Pakistan (1947-1970)

Decolonization of Indian subcontinent led to the formation of Muslim-majority

Pakistan. The separation from India in 1947 was based on the claim that the Muslim

minority had never got their fair share of social, political or economic fruits by being

discriminated by Indian Hindus, and neither would they if things stay as it was. So

Pakistan was born with two ethno-geographically distant parts: East- (now

8. It refers to those Indians who since the 1820s started acquiring their education based on

English language and culture. This neo middle-class “formed an autonomous social

group, (and) was internally consistent and differentiated from the other component parts

of the social body”. These “westernized” elitist Indians came mostly from the traditional

high casts (e.g. Brahmins) and “filled the bureaucracies of any existing Indian state”.

However, questions were raised about how much westernized these class could become

with regard to the “British standards of fairness and justice” (Torri 1990: 2).

9. This was also probably prompted by the ever declining socio-economic conditions of

rural peasants. Nahiduzzaman (2003: 60) reports that although the Permanent Settlement

Act was abolished and tenancy rights (opening up of a rural land market – ability of

peasants to sell or mortgage land that they previously leased from Zamindars) were given

to the Rayats through the Tenancy Act of 1885, the situation still benefitted the Zamindars

and Jotedars more than the Rayats. The enactment of Tenancy Act was in fact a more

‘political response’ to many events of peasant protests and resistance movements in

Bengal that were ongoing for decades. In reality, most Rayats were poor; to deal with

sudden hardships, borrowing money from or selling/mortgaging lands to Jotedars were

the only options available. Eventually, many of these Rayats became landless and turned

into the former’s agricultural slaves. Zamindars, on the other hand, were still given the

authority to collect rent from Rayats. Tenancy Act, although clearly gave them power to

increase rent in certain situations, left no provision as such for the Rayats. The obvious

reason this policy was biased because Zamindars had their representatives in the policy-

formulation process while peasants had none. So as this systematic exploitation

continued, it was by the first half of 20th

C, most of these Rayats would become heavily

indebted to the moneylenders while 74.6% of them downgraded to landless farmers (only

7.7% held land of 10 acres or more). In 1930s-1940s Khulna, 51% of the peasantry was

either sharecroppers or agricultural labourers (Ibid: 61-62).

111

Bangladesh) and West-Pakistan. In the East, Muslim peasants were the majority,

while a vacuum in leadership was still there as the educated elite class was

represented by the Hindu Zamindars, who, after partition had already migrated to

India. In the West however, the already existing Muslim landlordship was joined in

by rich Muslim immigrants from India following partition. Thus the West Pakistan’s

predominantly elitist political leadership, bureaucracy and business class continued to

dominate and exploit the resources of the agrarian East – much in the same way the

Hindu elite were doing prior to partition (Choudhury 1972: 243-244). Thus, this

period akin to prior times, had once again already started experiencing a scenario of

unequal socio-political relation between East- and West-Pakistan.

The policy thinking during Pakistan was also influenced by post-WWII global hype

for modernization and industrialization, and a subsequent shift of focus away from

agriculture. During this, it was widely held that transformation of former European

colonies from traditional to modern would enhance the latter’s productivity and help

global (read Anglo-European) economy to thrive (Leys 2005: 109-110). There were

imperatives to promote industrialization (both state-led and private sector driven) by

the military-backed national government of Pakistan in order to fulfil its own needs

for revenue, to create an ally with business elites, and also to satisfy important foreign

donors. Again, it was the East’s agrarian social system that was affected and became

subject to exploitation. West-Pakistani businessmen used to invest in the

industrialization of the East (e.g. Jute) and take the profits back to the West and

invest in West’s infrastructure development and industrialization. Reminiscent of

colonial times, raw agricultural products were exported to West Pakistan to support

its own industries, while East Pakistani businessmen were only allowed to market the

products produced by the West. Revenue collected from the Eastern industries was

used mainly to finance military expenses and industrialization in the West

(Naziduzzaman 2003: 70-72). Importance of rural agriculture and various livelihood

112

needs of its tenets were again systematically overlooked by the ruling regime.

Although 55% of the nation’s entire population lived in East-Pakistan, central

government’s development expenditure (and the bulk of foreign donations) here

seldom crossed the 30% mark. While East-Pakistan typically earned 50-70% of

Pakistan’s total export revenue, its share of import remained around 25%; the net

transfer from East to West during the 20+ years of nationhood was worth USD2.6

billion only (Morris-Jones 1972: 198-199). It is because of this largely one-way

transaction, revenue generated from agriculture and agriculture-based industries once

again failed to benefit the actual producers – the peasants and the ‘modern’ factory

worker respectively. Particularly, the urban factory worker continued to remain

homeless although industries were making good profits10

. On the other hand, without

any real incentive from agriculture turned into ‘surplus labour’ in his own home, and

assumed the name of ‘homeless migrant’ while in the city.

Immediately following the partition of Pakistan and India, Khulna experienced two

significant forms of population movement in addition to its already familiar rural-to-

urban labour movements. The partitioning was both preceded and followed by violent

communal riots11

on both sides of the border, prompting mass exile of both Hindu

and Muslim population (later termed as refugees) in and out of both Pakistan and

India. The bordering districts of East Pakistan (as Khulna was) received most Muslim

refugees who came mainly from the Indian states of West Bengal and Bihar. Oral

histories collected during fieldwork (Hakim 2012) suggest that two types of Muslim

10. As early as in 1950’s, East Pakistani Jute mills were supplying 75% of total global

demand for Jute (Sengupta 1971: 2279).

11. Riots were politically fuelled, particularly by the Muslim leaderships of undivided India

leading eventually to the massacre of tens of thousands of people each side of the border.

The key intension was to demonstrate to the British Viceroy of India (who was also in

charge of a peaceful British exit from India following the post-WWII crisis in Britain) that

Muslims and Hindus would never be able to live alongside each other peacefully and a

partitioning of India according to religious lines was inevitable. As the dominant Hindu

leadership opted for an undivided India, it was the socially and politically oppressed

Muslim populations, whose voice was politically exaggerated, used and later culminated

into massive acts of violation involving both parties.

113

refugees settled in Khulna. The first type was the Bangla-speaking and better

educated ones who could easily mix with the locals. As they settled in, they would

spread out all over the older core area of the city. Many of these in-coming refugees

exchanged houses and properties with the outgoing Hindus, while many others were

able to make a claim on the abandoned Hindu properties through the ‘help’ of local

political figures12

(Figure 4.3). The second type of refugees was the non-Bangali

Bihari. Despite Muslim, it was due to their different cultural background (e.g.

different dialect), the Biharis could not mix easily with the locals like the Bangla-

speaking ones could. They were also less educated and came mostly from rural Bihar.

Similar to some of the rural migrants in Khulna, nearly 15,000-20,000 of them came

in quickly and suddenly, and hence had to settle themselves in clusters of slums and

squatters near the city centre (Miah 2002: 66).

12. This informal process was further helped by the enactment of a curious law called Enemy

Property Law, which gave the state absolute power to confiscate or appropriate any

landed property in the ‘interest of the Muslim state’ owned (previously or presently) by

any Hindu personnel. The term ‘Enemy’, quite obviously, pointed to any existing or

exiled Hindu personnel. The informal processes of obtaining abandoned properties, it is

locally believed, were benefitted by the inaction of this law.

Figure 4.3: (Left) Khulna Master Plan 1961 (industrial area in yellow) (KDA 2002a: 11);

(Right) Khulna under British Raj (in accordance with Miah 2002).

114

By 1947, Khulna would already become the major jute trading centre for Kolkata,

where trading houses and processing industries were mostly owned by the Hindu

Marwari. However, after partition, most Marwaris left Khulna, while their businesses

were taken over by the state. Basing on Khulna’s reputation and its well established

trading network, the first state-owned Jute Mills was established in Khalishpur area in

1952. An additional 11 of such mills followed while other heavy industries – owned

by both public and private sectors, such as Jute Mills, Newsprint Mills, the

Hardboard Mills and the Shipyard also started operating under state ownership (Miah

2002: 67; Figure 4.3). A few other private-sector industries were also established – all

along the either sides of the river.

By this time however, Khulna had already earned its name as ‘the industrial town’ of

East Pakistan. The second sea port of the country was also established near Khulna.

With the establishment of each of these industries and a simultaneous inattention to

rural agriculture and agricultural peasants led only to the increase of rural to urban

exodus. Setting up of the formal sector industries in response to ISI13

thus pulled in a

large number of rural landless peasants to Khulna. What were only 42,000 in 1947,

Khulna’s population grew to almost 100,000 in 1961 (KDA 2002a: 40). It is during

this phase of rapid urbanization in Khulna, the 1961 Master Plan14

was prepared. The

plan was designed in the manner similar to those schemed for British towns during

late 1940s to 1960s (Chaudhury Undated: 1-2; Figure 4.3 - left). In 1961, Khulna

13. Import Substitution Industrialization was a neoliberal economic policy that advocated for

the replacement of major consumer imports by promoting domestic industries (textiles,

household appliances etc.) aided by protective tariffs and quotas to help new/infant

industries (Ahmed and Sattar 2004).

14. Master plans were ‘imported’ both in the newly independent states of India and Pakistan,

and were viewed by their respective political leaders as a key instrument for modern city

development (it was also during this same time when Chandigarh was planned in India).

In East Pakistan, they were initially designed by a British consortium of consultants for

three fastest urbanizing cities in the 1950s and 1960s (Dhaka, Chittagong and Khulna).

Master plans however, were statutory tools introduced by the British with the aim to re-

construct Europe from the rubbles of WWII. They were the physical interventionist

instruments and often with political implication, which made use of zoning, density

control, building regulation and planning standards for projecting development.

115

Development Authority (KDA) was established with their stated aims of “Urban

Planning; City Development; and Development Control” (KDA 2012). KDA was also

in-charge of executing the Master Plan.

Noteworthy about KDA’s Master Plan was the fact that it completely failed to project

the rate of urbanization and sort out the type of housing that would be mostly needed

for a rapidly industrializing Khulna. Rural landless peasants to Khulna15

started

settling down in numerous slum-like settlements in and around the city. A new

township was also laid out in Khalishpur in 1962 – alongside the industrial

establishments (Figure 4.3: right). Semi-permanent houses on small plots of land

(140m2) were constructed and allotted to more than 2,329 Bihari families in a

subsidized price (Miah 2002: 68). A number of larger plots were also developed in

anticipation of accommodating an upcoming affluent class of white collar migrants

employed mostly as officials in the nearby industries.

Altogether, another created condition of scarcity becomes evident here. Housing,

which in modern conditions was considered a state-responsibility and the

precondition for welfare and social control (Ghafur 2010: 5) thus remained elusive

for those who deserved it most. Neither the central government nor their local

administrators or political machinery did anything effective to house the key force i.e.

the migrants behind a labour-based economy. As it appears, the planning and laying

out of Khalishpur Township not at any point was prompted by the need for housing

these mass of migrants who were the essential workforce for Khulna’s industries.

Rather, it appears more as a political project of the pro-Muslim central government

(and its local political leaders), which, driven by the newly acquired zeal of a Muslim

15. Most of these migrants actually originated from three particular coastal and riverside

locations, which until now have remained the exclusive hinterlands to Khulna in terms of

migrant-sending (Angeles et al. 2009: 18).

116

nationhood laid out Khalishpur rather eagerly to house the Bihari refugees instead of

the poor local migrants (Figure 4.3: right). The laying out also had uprooted the local

residents of Charerhat and Khalishpur villages as local stories suggest. And even if

Khalishpur Housing Estate - a concern of National Housing Authority (NHA),

developed small-sized apartments for the lower-income groups at a later stage, the

supply and affordability was always on the shorter side compared with the actual

demand from the lowest-income groups (e.g. the migrants).

Although state-owned, the nearby Jute Mills did not provide much accommodation

for their workers either. Only around 528 rentable ‘flats’ were constructed in

Khalishpur during 1961-1964 targeting the low-income industrial workers (Miah

2002: 112). But these numbers were far from adequate when compared against the

actual demands from another few thousands lowest ranking factory workers and other

migrant population employed in the ‘informal sector’ all over the city. ‘Informal

settlements’ therefore had developed within the ‘planner’s grid’ of Khalishpur to

accommodate these thousands of migrant workforce. Migrants who could not manage

a job in these formal sector industries used to settle in other riverside (and most cases

peripheral low-lying) locations such as Boro Bazaar (Figure 4.3: right) and in

peripheral villages such as Tootpara, from which other informal job locations (e.g.

riverside wood business) were nearer.

4.2.4 Post-liberation Bangladesh (1972-mid 1980s)

The politico-economic landscape of Bangladesh during the decade following 1971’s

War of Liberation can be viewed as a clear case of failed Governmentalism and an era

of unfulfilled promises from an otherwise idealist regime. In terms of housing

provisioning for the masses of migrants, the situation remained unchanged if not

worse. Globally, 1970s was a time of economic downturn (most prominent was oil

crisis), growth in international financial transactions and rise of MNCs (Gleeson and

117

Low 2000: 270). In planning terms it was time that saw the “...rise of neoliberal

ideology (which) challenge(d) the notion of ‘the Plan’ as superior rationality”. All

forms of regulation (e.g. zoning) were questioned, while the benevolent role of

governments “as a provider” was severely criticized. It was a “world of continuing

change” where localities would be shaped by global forces (Castells 1992: 76).

In a debt-ridden Bangladesh of 1976-1990, World Bank and IMF continued to press

governments to adapt to the free trade environments for setting up export-oriented

(e.g. RMG, shrimp etc.) sectors, even if their establishment in certain locations could

be illegal in Urban Planning terms. They demanded of the governments to become

more market-oriented by relaxing tariff barriers and hence ease imports. De-

nationalization of state-owned industries and trading; de-regularization (removal of

government’s presence from price control), and liberalization of agricultural sector

(now agricultural goods could be imported even if at the cost of sacrificing local

agricultural sector) was also experienced (Ahmed and Sattar 2004: 11). Compared to

the earlier episodes, a much greater number of landless peasants therefore made their

way in to the Bangladeshi cities including Khulna. Table 4.1 summarizes the

correlation between various policy environments of this period and their impacts on

rural peasants’ and city-living migrants’ lives, and hence to the general urban form in

Bangladesh (Khulna’s case is referred where available).

Table 4.1: Moments of scarcity and urban form (1972-1990) (Prepared in accordance

with Afsar 1999: 237; Ahmed 2003: 298-299; Ahmed 2007; Choguill 1993; D’Costa

1994; Karim 2007; KDA 2007; Khanam 2004; Miah 2002; Rahman 2007; WB 2007).

Time

period,

regime

Key idea and

intension

Impact on

peasant/migrant

Urban spatial

impact and

Bangladesh/Khulna

118

Post-

liberation

1972-1973

- Idealistic but

whimsical

development scenario,

without required

resources and without

any realistic plan for

implementation

- Urban authorities

aimed to control

squatter settlement

growth

- Public delivery of

multi-storied

‘cooperative’ flats

targeting the neediest

emulating, but quite

superficially, the

‘Singapore model’ of

hosing for all

- Mass in-migration

after 1971 war of

liberation and 1974

floods added to

existing housing

shortage

- Inadequate job in

public and private

industries

- insufficient housing

even for formal

sector workers

- Flawed tenant

selection process:

invasion and project

abandonment

- Creation of housing

cooperatives failed

in the absence of

follow ups, control

and incentives

- Squatter settlements

formed at both city

centres and peripheral

areas

- 27,000 low cost

housing units built

nation-wide, although

most were

concentrated in

Dhaka

First Five

Year Plan

1973-1978

- Housing subsidization

considered (by

provisioning low cost

land and rentable

tenement blocks)

- Experiments with

‘low cost’ ideas such

as minimum shelter,

nucleus shelter, site-

and-service projects,

workers’ housing and

temporary settlements

- Subsidy proved

unfeasible in the

presence of a large

number of claimants

and for a resource-

scarce government

- Funds directed to

prestigious sectors as

ministers’ housing,

conference centres,

flood embankments,

Thana head-quarters

and tourism

infrastructure

development

1975 - Squatter

Rehabilitation

project; at odds with

already prevailing

global experiences

and practices; this

was politically

- Forced resettlement

of squatting

migrants to

peripheral low-lying

areas of the city,

away from informal

places of income

- Clearance of slums

and squatters from

city centres

- Many migrants

sold/exchanged the

land they received as

part of rehabilitation

119

motivated, and

prompted by urban

elites (including

media personnel)

generation and

without affordable

means of

communication

project and kept

coming back to the

city centre

- New slums formed

Two Year

Plan

1978-1980

- Township models and

site and services

schemes continue to

be considered as

solution to housing

shortage

- Serviced plot price

was 2.4 to 7.8 times

higher than the

affordable range of

the average income

households; it was

way beyond rural

migrant’s affordable

range

- Nationally,

government delivered

an estimated 8,500

low cost units and

1,200 plots for the

urban poor

- In Khulna, around

713 plots were given

to the landless

squatters for a fees

Second

Five Year

Plan

1980-1985

- Shift in housing

policy thoughts –

lower standards set in

place of high-quality

housing/land delivery

- Decentralization

considered; goal was

to shift development

activities to newer

urban centres to

reduce pressure off

bigger cities and

promote local growth

- Labour unions from

public-sector

industries abolished;

more informality

created

- No government

policy obliged

private sector

industrialists to

provide basic safety

nets to migrant

workers including

housing

- Public sector

programs remain

limited to a few land

development and

infrastructure

improvement projects

- Export oriented

shrimp industries

start to grow in

Khulna (Figure 4.4:

right)

- ‘Support’ settlements

(slums) grow along

Third Five

Year Plan

1985-90

- Civic facilities for all;

building low-cost

semi-permanent

housing units using

own resources and

increase stock by

providing plots,

utilities and easy

finance

- Encouragement to

private-sector

investment

- Low-income blocks

could not address

the needs of a few

million of least

income population

- Incomplete steps fail

to improve situation

- Transfer of

government-owned

housing stock to

private owners

- KDA allotted a total

of 2984 land plots in

the six residential

areas it developed

- Of these, around

1000 were targeted

for lower-income

employed in formal

sector – not for

lowest income rural-

urban migrants

120

4.2.5 Post-SAP Bangladesh (1990-present)

Market mechanisms have continued to affect this ongoing phase of urbanization in

Khulna. First, the proponents of market liberalization and free trade (World Bank and

IMF) had successfully convinced the central government that a lack of

industrialization is what holds back sustained growth. WTO, as a party to MNCs (and

their local partners) hence had influenced the governments to shift its focus away

from agriculture to urban industrialization to produce non-traditional export-oriented

items16

. As an outcome of implemented SAP policies, a number of private sector

shrimp processing industries were established along the riverside zones of Khulna

(Figure 4.4: right). Supporting businesses related to shrimp industry (freezing,

scaling, packaging, construction etc.) had also started to grow alongside these

factories and in Khulna’s rural hinterlands. As Table 4.2 suggests, with declining

benefits from agriculture and drastic change in livelihoods17

Khulna as in other

Bangladeshi cities had also become a major destination for jobless peasantry (or

‘surplus labour’ according to economists) off its hinterlands.

16. This closely resembles the ‘Chile model’ of 1970s’ which was the first test-case for the

Neoliberal doctrines (Murray 2009: 380-381).

17. From 1990’s onwards, aided by supportive government policies (tax reduction for export-

oriented items’ production and setting up of export oriented industries), shrimp farming

boomed particularly in the South-Western coastal zones of Bangladesh. Low investment

and high return lured millions of agricultural farmers to give up their traditional way of

double or triple cropping (per annum) and assume shrimp farming instead. Currently,

more than 1.5million people are employed in this sector in greater Khulna region alone;

this has led to the reduction of peasants’ involvement in traditional crop-based agriculture

from 80% to 25% (Datta et al. 2010: 230-231). This drastic social-environmental-

economic transformation, however, had left its adverse consequence as well. Amongst the

most immediate outcomes, a gradual decline in rice yield and increase of soil salinity has

remained most prominent. Farming by obstructing and confining the natural water flow

(by digging and constructing shrimp rearing ponds of various sorts and sizes) has often

led to sudden outbreak of diseases. Water stagnation and sedimentation, decrease of

grazing fields for livestock, loss of fish stock in rivers due to shrimp fry collection also

remained the common reasons behind the adverse affect on coastal peasants’ livelihoods.

In social terms, newfound affluence invited social stress in many cases leading to court-

cases to resolve land disputes even amongst family members. It has also invited large-

scale land grabbers to the remotest of rural areas, often from distant urban areas, to use

their political powers to get hold of state-owned Khas land, which were once enjoyed by

landless rural farmers. Many peasants, even with legal title, were evicted forcefully from

their ancestral lands to make way for large-scale farming and their politically connected

121

Newfound prosperity also gave rise to new elites and deeper spatial segregation; in

KDA’s townships for the middle class (e.g. Sonadanga R/A; green circle Figure 4.4:

left), land price multiplied within a single decade. As older migrant settlements have

become more crowded, many newer and smaller settlements formed to accommodate

the influx of new migrants. And as more of these private industries were erected, the

informal settlements mushroomed alongside. Although these industries belonged to

the formal sector, none provided accommodation for its workers or furnished any

fiscal incentives for workers’ housing (Hakim 2012). The promoters of market

liberalization, i.e. World Bank also has struggled with devising a suitable strategy on

how the masses of so called ‘surplus labour’, who are now serving the interests of the

market economy18

, were to be housed. Instead, they would now focus on advocating

for private sector’s involvement in providing housing, and hence transferring

musclemen-owners. As agricultural lands were turned to shrimp ponds, many

sharecroppers and landless wage labourers lost their livelihoods (Ibid: 234-236).

18. Bangladesh accounts for around 3% of global production of commercial shrimp; it is the

seventh largest shrimp exporting country in the world (Datta et al. 2010: 232). Shrimp is

the second major industry-based export item in Bangladesh. More than 70% of national

production of shrimp is produced in Khulna (Ibid: 229). Most of Bangladesh’s 124

export-oriented shrimp factories are located in and around Khulna that employ, mostly

informally, thousands of informal migrant workers (Ahmed and Sattar 2004: 21).

Figure 4.4: Khulna urban-form: (left) post-1971; (right) post 1990-present (Source: Miah 2002)

122

responsibility from state to poor households in order to reduce public sector’s

economic inefficiency and ineffectiveness (Ramsamy 2006: 171). Influenced by this,

governments (local and central) also failed to produce policies that oblige these

industries to provide accommodation for its workers. Eventually, “the state…ought to

withdraw from the direct production and provision, and facilitate or enable the private

sector, formal and informal, to provide land, housing and services” (Ghafur 2010:

10). In reality, the only ‘private sector’ apart from the ‘illegal’ informal settlements

that have remained involved, for at least during the last three decades in providing

affordable accommodation has been the poor landlords (once-migrants themselves)

living in the fringe areas of the city. The role of mainstream formal private sector19

,

quite unsurprisingly, has remained limited in the provisioning of land plots for

middle- and higher-class housing.

Table 4.2: Moments of scarcity for urban poor affecting urban form: post-SAP

Bangladesh (prepared in accordance with: Ahmed 2007; Ahmed and Sattar 2004;

Choguill 1993; D’Costa 1994; Karim 2007; Khan 1999: 171-172; Khanam 2004;

Rahman 2007; UNDP 2007; WB 2007).

Time

period,

regime

Key idea and

intension

Effect on

peasant/migrant

Urban spatial

impact and

Bangladesh/Khulna Fourth

Five Year

Plan

1990-95

- Government realizes

its resource

inadequacy; role shifts

from housing provider

to enabler of policies

to improve urban

poor’s economic

- Relocation of slums

from city centre

continues; migrants

had to live far away

from their work place

without affordable

transport; hazardous

- Earth filling, illegal

subdivision on city

periphery continues

19. REHAB (Real Estate and Housing Association of Bangladesh), which comprises of 1081

member farms and claims to have delivered around 200,000 apartment units and have

developed 120,000 land plots during the past two decades after their inception

(http://www.rehab-bd.org/rehab_at_a_glance.php), are not known for their deliverance of

affordable apartments or plots of land to the urban poor.

123

National

Housing

Policy

1993

condition

- Involvement only in

planning and

developing land,

infrastructure and

services

- Stimulate environment

conducive for private

sector involvement

locations (e.g. low-

lying fringe areas)

- NGO involvement

accelerates

- On-site upgrading,

renovation and

development with

conferment of

occupancy rights;

commitment for

service and utility

provisioning

- Community

participation and

involvement of NGOs

become accepted

norms

- Home-lending

program by

Bangladesh Bank

announced for funding

poor’s housing; NGOs

to act as intermediaries

- Eviction of slum

dwellers continues and

brutal means being

regularly used

- NGO run and

government approved

poverty alleviation and

environment upgrading

projects also get

affected

- Lack of commitment

and coordination

between agencies

- No further progress to

disburse housing loans

for urban poor

Fifth Five

Year Plan

1995-

2000

- Intention to improve

quality of poor’s life

by providing adequate

infrastructure;

envisioned

development of low-

cost multi-storied

buildings for

resettlement

- WTO and inclusion of

agriculture into

GATT; government to

- De-agrarianization

continues:, peasants’

involvement to crop-

based agriculture

reduces to 18% from

33% in the previous

decade

- Landless condition of

peasants worsens

owning to both natural

disasters and man-

made causes

- Nothing substantial

is accomplished

except from the

introduction of a

few small-scale

housing credit

schemes and low-

cost plots

124

significantly cut

involvement in

agriculture and

subsidy

Revised

National

Housing

Policy

1999

- Urban poor is

recognized an essential

part of economy and

issues regarding their

tenure security and

access to basic

services were to be

addressed

- In-situ slum upgrading

programs received in-

principle approval

- Governments unwilling

to provide housing

services fearing it

would encourage

further in-migration

- Policy not fully

realized; unclear policy

leading to

misunderstanding and

lack of coordination

between different

government agencies

- Very little

upgrading takes

place

Draft

National

Housing

Policy

2004

- The Poverty Reduction

Strategy Paper (PRSP)

is proposed for

Bangladesh, persuaded

again by World Bank

and IMF

- PRSP includes policy

agenda for

provisioning housing

for challenged groups

(e.g. single working

women, elderly and

the disabled)

- UNDP and

Government funded

Local Partnerships for

Urban Poverty

Reduction Project

(LPUPAP) launched

on 2000 in 11 towns

and cities for the

improvement of

services, utilities and

empowerment of poor

- PRSP does not mention

migrant’s housing

- Policy remains

unapproved due to

deadlocks arising from

volatile political

situations

- Although LPUPAP’s

impact was significant,

yet in its seven-year

tenure (2000-2007), it

could only manage

around USD1million

grant money, and

generate a meager

USD0.1million from

the savings of its

members. Despite

having a good idea, it

suffered from lack of

funds and could not

contribute more

- Slum eviction

without

resettlement

continues; but

slums continue to

form and exist in

city centres

- LPUPAP had its

effect on

settlements’ built

environment

through upgrading

of services and

utilities; it also

sanctioned small

loans for house

construction and

improvement

- In Khulna’s

migrant

settlements, 133

CDC and 1226

groups (23,000

persons; 92%

125

community members female) had

completed more

than 200 ‘slum

improvement’

projects

Present

times

- Advocacy for

innovative policy;

allows advocacy

groups to engage in

negotiation with

governments and seek

funds from donors

- UNDP and

UNHABITAT funded

Urban Partnerships

for Poverty Reduction

project (UPPRP)

launched on 2008

- Impact of these

policies yet to be

evaluated

- Despite local

government and

UNDP’s involvement

in settlement upgrading

works, eviction and

displacement threats

are ongoing mainly

from land-grabbers and

supported by

bureaucracy (e.g.

KDA, police etc.)

- UPPRP is having

similar effect as

LPUPAP had;

although confined

in the settlement

level,

improvements of

drainage, streets,

service areas and

even house-forms

are evident in many

of the settlements

(although many

remained the same)

4.3 Summary

This chapter has looked at the structural insufficiencies and imbalances as a product

of modern conditions. This chronological review of the political and economic

doctrines reveal that little has changed in terms of top-down policy formulation and

their impact on ordinary peasants’ and peasant-turned migrants’ ways of life in

Bangladesh. Pertaining mainly to the land administration sector in the context of this

predominantly agrarian society and starting with the early colonization of Bengal, the

deliberately implemented policies by the authoritative regimes have historically

contributed to the creation of homeless-ness (including loss of livelihoods) in rural

peasants lives, and a constant dearth of housing-provisioning for peasant-turned-

migrants’ in Khulna. In order to fulfil both economic and political objectives, this

discussion reveals, these many modernist policies have been used by the ruling

126

regimes and their elite collaborators leaving dire consequences for Bengal’s (and later

Bangladesh’s) agrarian socio-spatial structure in general.

It is therefore, through these examples and evidences, a thread becomes apparent.

These deliberately constructed conditions, characterized historically by only the

opposing components of the ideal situations, such as unevenness, discrepancy,

shortage, inequality and segregation – hence asks for adapting to an alternative

perspective. Such a perspective should also delineate a larger context to allow a

deeper understanding of the links between migrants’ home-(re)making efforts in

relation with the new socio-spatial binaries in the city (e.g. standard-nonstandard,

formal-informal, permanent-temporary or legal-illegal). The concept of Scarcity, as

have been found with the cases in this chapter, can hence be viewed as a means to

fulfilling politico-economic objectives (e.g. control) by authoritarian regimes by

creating imbalance of systems or by unevenly distributing human and non-human

resources. Scarcity, a condition synonymous with ‘a presence of lacking’ but

authoritatively practiced even in the presence of ‘having enough’ hence provides a

useful perspective of elite’s strategies for control. Supplemented by the identified

threads and themes through the socio-spatial analysis of migrant homes in Chapter 5,

which shows how the aforesaid binary co-existences are deliberately constructed,

maintained and used by various actors (including the migrants themselves) in the

shaping of migrants’ dwelling environments in Khulna, the concept of Scarcity is

further advanced in Chapter 6.

127

Chapter 5: Settlement history and spatial practices

5.1 Introduction

Following the discussion on ‘modern’ Khulna’s urban spatial transformation in

relation with migrants’ settling down process in Chapter 4, this chapter focuses more

on the socio-spatial practices as prevailing in migrants’ dwelling environments. In

view of the selected variables in Chapter 3, the following sections describe

respectively: (1) settlement history (tenure, ownership and control, and spatial

boundaries), (2) household spatial practices (transformation, spatial organization,

territorial practices and structure, contextual aspirations), and (3) decision-making

structure (type and nature, actors and rules). All sections are prepared using the most

recurring of themes from migrants’ spatio-physical practices by maintaining constant

reference with external actors’ role in their present status of land tenure and house

ownership. In order to explain the spatio-physical phenomena as outlined in the data

analysis framework in Chapter 3, household- and settlement-level information and

drawings are organized in a way which makes use of only the required number of

examples. Not all the instances and evidences from all 10 settlements and 34 dwelling

units are analyzed simultaneously for describing each of the phenomena. The idea is

not to generalize findings. Rather, efforts are given to identify and explain these

phenomena and combine them to construct particular threads of themes. The

summary concludes by mentioning the common themes which emerge from the

particular socio-spatial practices at both dwelling and settlement levels. These

themes, along with those from Chapter 4 are carried forward to Chapter 6 where they

are analyzed and synthesized in tandem.

(From here on, a particular household within particular a settlement, for example the

surveyed house 1 in settlement 5 is referred to as S1H5).

128

5.2 History of settlement

5.2.1 History of tenure

This section begins with the discussions on tenure history (and spatio-physical

transformation) of the selected migrant settlements. For that, a categorization of these

settlements is exercised according to their present tenure status. However, tenure

history also discusses the earlier forms of ownership that the migrant residents from

each of these settlements have enjoyed previously. Roles of various influential

actors/policies are also highlighted in the discussion of the spatio physical

transformation of these settlements. Drawing mainly on the tenure classifications

provided by Payne (1997) and UN-HABITAT (2004: 8) as discussed in Chapter 2, a

total of seven types are identified in the context of Khulna.

Freehold

Settlement 5:

Motiakhali

Household/plot: 3-10; Density: 550-900 persons/ha

(approx.)

This settlement type, in general, can be understood as privately developed small

informal settlement clusters on city periphery (Figure 5.1). In most cases, the

migrant-turned-landlord lives alongside tenants on the same site (residence of 3 to 10

families are common on a single plot of land) (Figure 5.2). This, however, is the most

emerging type amongst all low-income migrant settlement types in Khulna. Many of

these are often unidentifiable as slums. Although ‘poor’ people live here, there are

certain attributes of these settlements for which they are hard to be categorized as

slums. In many cases, rented dwelling units are brick-built. The tenants also share the

same utilities as those of the landlord – on-site source of water, electricity, sanitary

toilet, separate space for cooking and bathing etc. In most cases, government funded

free community clinic and primary school could also be found nearby. Settlement 5

hence refers to a private property, acquired through the purchasing of land during

Khulna’s initial industrialization in the 1960s and 1970s. Which were originally low

129

lying agricultural lands (for paddy cultivation mainly) in Khulna’s South-Western

fringe areas, were later subdivided ‘illegally’ (without any clear land use map or

detailed area plan) by owners and sold to incoming migrants.

These plots of land were originally purchased for a very cheap price by people with

small informal jobs or by third/fourth class employees (and migrant workers) working

in nearby formal-sector industries (Khulna Shipyard Limited, Dada Match Factory

etc.). Cultivation and cropping was carried out with the help of peasant-migrants from

Satkhira (a South-Western coastal district in Bangladesh) mainly. But during the

1990s, when many government-owned industries were closed down in Khulna while

private sector shrimp industries boomed – both retired employees (from government

industries) and newly wealthy class (from shrimp business) started purchasing land in

this peripheral location. These two group’s investment in land led to the sudden

escalation of land price and drew in more speculators. Many other people, who were

not originally from Khulna, also started purchasing land in this area. This is also

when Khulna’s rural hinterlands were experiencing a sharp decline in agricultural

production (Chapter 4). So as peasants started making their way in to Khulna and

kept looking for affordable accommodation, most landowners of these peripheral

Figure 5.1: (Left) KCC jurisdiction map showing location of Motiakhali area (Source: KCC

2012); (middle) built-form distribution in space; (right) Satellite image (Source: Google Earth

2012).

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lands took this opportunity and constructed portions of their agricultural land into

more profitable rentable units. Some migrants were also allowed to stay rent-free – in

exchange of their service to look after the property and help the landlord with his/her

everyday activities (e.g. business, agriculture, household works etc.). In all cases,

non-permanent (called ‘Katcha’) houses were initially constructed using bamboo,

thatching and mud. Permanent houses are only (re)constructed later through a gradual

(and incremental) consolidation process. Since the older migrant settlements

(particularly those close to city centre) were already crowded and high-priced, this

type quickly became the most popular mode of accommodation for the bulk of the

newer in-migrants. It was during the latter half of the 1990s, population density

escalated while people’s demand for utilities and services became ‘important

enough1’. It was hence to draw the attention of local Ward Councillor, as some form

of infrastructure (particularly laying out brick-paved roads) was provisioned by KCC.

In terms of social relation, this co-living of the landlord and his/her tenants is

reminiscent of a customary form of master-servant way of life typical of the rural

Bangladeshi society2. Generally a single room is rented by one migrant family, while

services and utilities are commonly shared between the tenants, and often also with

the landlord’s family (Figure 5.2). In this, the tenant benefits financially from sharing

everyday services, utilities and spaces with the ‘on-site’ landlord. Tenants’ social

world also extends beyond his/her personal network; benefit occurs from getting

immediate access to the local social network of the landlord for getting access to jobs

and other livelihood opportunities (e.g. healthcare, education etc.). This accepted

subordination to the landlord also helps receive important institutional support (e.g.

1. As density increases, so does the number of voters; so with the increase of density (and

through persistent lobbying) local public representatives (e.g. Ward Councillor)

commonly extend their activities in such areas.

2. Indra and Buchignani (1997: 26) discusses how in rural Bangladesh, landless people

“make innovative use of kinship and other ideologies legitimating reciprocity and mutual

aid to re-establish themselves rent-free on the land of others”.

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NGO loans become easily available for having a ‘legal’ address rather than living

anonymously in the Bastee). Alternatively, the landlord also benefits socially in

addition to the rent money received from the tenants. For example, the landlord’s

political importance increases as the Ward Councillor now gives him/her importance

during election times. As a ‘guardian’ of his/her tenants instead of approaching the

individual tenants to vote for him, the Councillor recognizes that if the landlord

certifies him/her as a competent candidate, it would earn him/her vote (voters’

confidence) much easily compared to any other forms of campaign.

Registered leasehold

Settlement 4:

Runner Math

Area: 1 Acre (approx.); Household: 200+;

Population: 1000+; Density 2500p/ha

Once agricultural land on Khulna’s north-western fringe becomes ‘abandoned

property’ as Hindu businessman-owner emigrates to India during War of

Independence in 1971. Vacant ‘abandoned property3’ continues to be used as a

playground (Maath) for surrounding villages while a small sporting club building

(named Runner Club) was erected ‘illegally’ by a group of local youth. An ex-refugee

Figure 5.2: (Left) Mr. Ziarul (landlord)’s house plan

at Motiakhali. Brick-built house on top-left corner is

his dwelling unit, while highlighted areas are

locations of shared kitchen, toilet and tube-well areas;

remaining are 10 rented units (rooms) for 10 tenant-

families; (above) photograph showing Mr. Ziarul’s

house on right and rented Katcha units on left.

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government official (from Kolkata) later leases it from Government and starts

cultivating it for agricultural farming. In 1972, the migrant farmer working for the

leaseholder constructs house and starts living on this land as a caretaker and ‘bribe’

the club away. In the following year, after a dispute with the leaseholder regarding

‘harvest sharing’, this migrant farmer issues an injunction to current leaseholder with

the help of an influential businessman. Following injunction, this leaseholder

although a government official, never came back to reclaim this land’s possession4.

As it becomes an ‘abandoned property’, now many start showing their interest in this

land. So as in 1976, a local political leader eyes on this land, and sends two of his

political hands – i.e. ‘Labour Sardars’ (leader) working in a nearby government

Godown (silo for storing food grains) to start residing here (Figure 5.3: right).

All of these three migrants (the Sardar brothers and the farmer) happened to be from

the same district of Barishal5. Hence they would invite a few more families to live

3. It, by law, becomes government’s Khas land, which the Government can lease to anyone

it deems ‘eligible’.

4. Since this official was a refugee himself, he feared local resistance and possible clash

with this farmer who is now backed by locally influential personnel.

5. One amongst the three particular coastal and riverside locations in Bangladesh, which

until now has remained the exclusive hinterland to Khulna in terms of migrant-sending

(Angeles et al. 2009: 18). Generally, people refer to other people from his/her same

Figure 5.3: (Left) KCC jurisdiction map showing location of Runner Math (Source: KCC

2012); (middle) built-form distribution in space; (right) Satellite image showing location of

Runner Math in relation with the location of Government Silo (Source: Google Earth 2012).

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with them – all having their roots in Barishal. In 1979, during the tenure of army-

backed President Zia, a local college was established (read ‘in his admiration’).

Political leaders from Zia’s party (BNP6) used this occasion to appropriate Runner

Math by evicting the squatters and erect a students’ hostel there. The earlier lease by

now was cancelled; Runner Maath land was now allocated to Zia College through a

long-term lease. But knowing through ‘insiders’ that this was actually a plot to evict

them and a hostel would never be erected at Runner Math, these three migrants now

aggressively start inviting their known people (relatives, friends etc.) – all landless

ex-migrants like they themselves from different corners of the city to live alongside

them. They would also set the criteria that everyone who comes here must be from

the Barishal region. During the next regime of the military dictator President Ershad

in early 1980s, a ‘vacant order’ was decreed by locally influential people interested in

Runner Math. But the migrants, now led primarily by the Sardar brothers, again use

their power to mobilize the Godown labour to neutralize the eviction threats. Another

eviction threat from the local MP was again resisted in early-1990s; although the MP

proposed that all Runner Math inhabitants would be rehabilitated to a new site, the

Sardar brothers declined his proposal. Instead, they went on to convey a strong

message to this MP that a relocation would lead only to the reduction of votes in the

upcoming national election. Knowing that their group role would be decisive for any

MP and Ward Councillor during elections, each new threat therefore was invariably

followed by the arrival of more migrant families. By 1995, Runner Maath becomes

‘full’ with houses. In 2008, during another ‘non-political’ military regime, the local

land administrator was finally ‘reached’ after several months of lobbying. As he was

now convinced and his office was bribed, leasehold for 25 years was finally obtained.

regional origin (e.g. from same village, or who speak the same dialect) as ‘Deshi

Manush’.

6. BNP stands for Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which is one of the two major political

parties in Bangladesh formed by President Zia (an ex-Army General and one of the key

sector commanders during Bangladesh’s War of Independence in 1971). Zia’s tenure saw

Bangladesh’s first Marshal Law (army-backed government).

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Figure 5.4: (Left) KCC jurisdiction map showing location of Railway Guard’s Colony (Source:

KCC 2012); (middle) built-form distribution in space; (right) Satellite image showing the

housing area, and the riverside Ghats on right (Source: Google Earth 2012).

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Public rental

Settlement 10:

Railway Guard’s Colony

Area: 14.34 Acre; House: 600+; Pop.

3,000+; Density 520p/ha

This settlement is a part of Bangladesh Railways staffs’ planned residential quarters

in central Khulna – designed and executed in a ‘row-house’ manner in the 1960s

(Figure 5.4). Both house interiors and adjacent land have since been ‘illegally’

modified by the Railways staff themselves. Such modification and construction

practices were further compounded by the gradual occupation of the entire Railways

estate and nearby Ghat (loading-unloading quay) by a local Mastan (mafia boss) in

the mid 1980s. This migrant-turned-Mastan (who would be later elected as a Ward

Councillor) continued to erect slum houses within the vacant spaces of this planned

settlement until 1999. It was generally the migrant population from his home district

that were allowed to settle in those houses. Railways authority was unable to do

anything about it because this Mastan was supported by the local politicians from

successive ruling regimes.

It was this Mastan’s ‘unofficial’ approval that was also required even for an officer to

move in to an ‘officially allotted’ formal housing unit. After his fall in early 2000s,

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most slum-households were relocated to another nearby site7 (settlement 3). But by

now, this newly reclaimed territorial control encouraged railway staffs to construct

even more informal/illegal houses, roads, plantations and other structures within this

planned housing estate (Figure 5.5).

However, getting access to Railways housing remains highly contested since this

government-provided (subsidized and hence affordable) housing for the third- and

fourth-class employees in Bangladesh has been scarce. The number of housing units

supplied has always been on the shorter side compared with the actual demand. Thus

many officers kept staying in these houses for decades, even after they got transferred

to other posts. This also led to curious ‘situated’ practices amongst the realm of

public housing including renting, subletting, re-territorializing, developing and even

7. Although a few such houses can still be found in the settlement (Figure 5.5: bottom-

right); it has been learnt that some new ‘arrangements’ have already been made between

Figure 5.5: (Left) plan showing typical ‘row-house’ unit transformation in Railway Guard’s

Colony – (1) Verandah transformed into master sleeping area; (2) open yard becomes semi-

covered space used for cooking, water storage, bathroom and toilet, and entrance; (3) Katcha

building attached with permanent structure as family size increases; (top right) single storey

row-house like arrangement of Railway employee’s housing (Source: Google Earth 2012);

(bottom middle) fencing used to mark property line as in private estates (see plan) – Katcha

house is in the background; (bottom right) ‘informal house’ still on Railways land inhibited by

outsiders – remains of Mafia boss’s legacy.

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3

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‘selling out possession rights’ of the dwelling units to new incoming officers.

Although owned by the Railways, it has been the tenants’ investments in these

properties over the years8 that made them behave like ‘private’ property owners. For

getting allotment and extend their stay (e.g. after being transferred), officers actually

have to bribe their own colleagues (office staff from Railways’ Internal Welfare

Department, in-charge of housing allotment). In addition, knowing which unit is

vacating soon and would be ready for moving in – require a constant tapping of social

networks amongst their colleagues and residents.

De facto secure tenure

Settlement 1:

Rupsha Char Bastee

Area: 3.44 Acre; Household: 1,600+; Pop.

11,000+; Density 3200p/ha

Settlement 3:

5 No. Ghat Bastee

Area: 5.11 Acre; Household: 1,500+; Pop.

10,000+; Density 1960p/ha

Settlement 7:

7 No. Camp

Area: 0.7 Acre; Household: 160; Pop. 1,000+;

Density 1430p/ha

These three settlements, in the traditional sense, are all ‘squatters’. It is their de facto

status in terms of land ownership that brings them together under this particular

category. However, there are subtle differences in the ways they have been developed

through squatting on government land and public housing. Variations can also be

noticed in the way they have continued to make socio-political ‘arrangements’ for

securing their present occupancy.

Settlement 1 (Rupsha Char Bastee) is located on a government-owned Char9 (Figure

5.6). Habitation begun on this southern peripheral land of Khulna in the early 1960s,

tenants and Railway officials in charge

8. From fixing house-front roads and drainage canals to construction, repair and

modification of house.

9. Chars are low-lying lands that are formed on the river edge due to siltation. This is a

natural process of land formation in the deltaic geological conditions as in Bangladesh.

Any land developed through this process is considered as Khas land, meaning such land

(including islands) would automatically be considered as central Government’s property.

‘Khas land’ is central government-owned land, intended to be leased for both agricultural

and non-agricultural purposes. The most eligible for Khas land are: the landless poor

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and has even since been developed gradually. A local Ward Councillor (called Ward

Commissioner then) started settling in migrants coming in mostly from Khulna’s

coastal hinterlands. As businesses grew along the riverside, this settlement continued

to pass through the ‘classic’ phases of spatio-physical transformation as observed in

other global-level examples of squatter settlements. Platform houses were first

erected followed by gradual landfill; later came the construction of roads and other

infrastructure and eventually services and utilities were provided. Self-help, support

from local traders and industry-owners, KCC and more recently NGOs and the

UNDP-led UPPRP-project – have all been the means through which this gradual

development became possible (Figure 5.7).

This settlement is located right alongside one of Khulna’s oldest riverside locations

that consist of numerous Ghats supporting the wholesale fish markets (Notun

Bazaar), wood trading and river transport stations (Figure 5.6: right). Migrant

settlements such as Rupsha Char have actually been developed over the years as

‘support’ to these traditional riverside enterprises. So it came as no surprise when in

the mid-1980s a number of export-oriented shrimp processing industries were erected

(both urban and rural), significant contributors to society and economy, or

Figure 5.6: (Left) KCC jurisdiction map showing location of Rupsha Char Bastee (Source:

KCC 2012); (middle) built-form distribution in space; (right) Satellite image showing the

settlements area and the industrial/trading area along the river (Source: Google Earth 2012).

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in and around Rupsha Char area – turning it into one of the most bustling (and

densely populated) trading zones of Khulna. Many supporting businesses for the

industries (e.g. ice factories to support shrimp trading, or saw-mills to support wood

trading) also grew alongside. Similar to the Shrimp industries, the abundance of

cheap labour also influenced the gradual development of other ‘new’ businesses

along the river (related to construction industry, these are: storage and supplying of

building materials such as brick, sand, brick chips etc.).

Land in and around this area is therefore highly priced and contested amongst all the

parties mentioned. Because of the Char character of land and devoid of a definite

boundary (as Chars are always shifting and morphing), land tenure status of all

parties (including the fishery giants) remain dubious and subject to the

interpretation/manipulation of influential actors10

. Naturally, a settlement as large as

Rupsha Char Bastee also includes disputed areas within its boundary. Eviction threats

persons/groups/institutes who wish to use it for public benefit (Hossain 2010: 77).

10. For example, the shrimp industries and all other present enterprises along the river-edge

are located on the even newly formed Char land (hence Khas land). Yet, eviction drives

Phase 1: Pre-Liberation (pre-1971) Key actors involved: Christian Missionary, Ward Councillor

Phase 2: Post-Liberation (post-1971) Key actors involved: Christian Missionary, Ward Councillor

Phase 3: Pre-SAP (pre-1980) Key actors involved: Christian Mayor, Foreign NGOs

Phase 4: During SAP (1980s-1990s) Key actors involved: Ward Councillor, Donors and NGOs, Industrial owners

Figure 5.7: Showing settlement transformation phases in Rupsha Char Bastee (the most

influential actors involved in each phase is also mentioned).

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Figure 5.8: (Right) Satellite image showing the actual location of Rupsha Char Bastee

(marked), with the riverside Ghats, shrimp industries and other enterprises along the riverside

on its right (Source: Google Earth 2012); (left) same area is projected on KDA’s Master Plan

2002; this designates the marked (Rupsha Char Bastee) area as mixed-use and commercial

location. Riverside Ghats and enterprises are shown as parks (Source: KDA 2002a).

are also frequent11

. Around 40% of its 26 Bigha12

land area is a highly contested

terrain between migrants13

, a Christian community14

and the industry owners (i.e.

elites). Tenants are not landowners here; but a few amongst the 2000+ households on

the southern part of the settlement have been granted temporary leasehold, while the

rest on the northern and middle part of the settlement (disputed) live without any

form of tenure security.

never target them. In addition, KDA (Khulna’s planning authority)’s Master Plan 2002

designates this area for parks and major arterial ways (Figure 5.8).

11. The latest threat came in August 2012 during the third phase of my fieldwork; a local

fishery mogul, who has been interested in this disputed land for many years, once again

had made an attempt to evict the migrants using his bureaucratic connections. In this

particular instance, an ‘eviction notice’ was served through the local Police

Commissioner (prompted by this influential businessman) although police do not have

any legal authority to do so. This threat, as in earlier cases, was eventually neutralized by

mass protests, persuasion and the political intervention by the Mayor.

12. A local unit for land area measurement; 1 Bigha = 1340m2, or 14,400sft.

13. The older migrants claim that this portion of land was actually a paddy-field owned by a

Hindu Zamindar. This Zamindar, before his emigration to India after partition in 1947,

had donated this land for the welfare of poor people. Since the Christian Missionary in

Khulna was amongst the most active philanthropic organization (and also a non-Muslim

organization), the Hindu Zamindar is believed to had trusted this missionary more than

the land administrators of the Muslim state of East Pakistan. Devoid of any land

ownership record (due to its being a Char land) or without any official document that

shows if any declaration of donation was made by the Zamindar, the migrants claim that

the successive heads of this Missionary have since acted partially and favoured only the

Christian migrants rather the migrant community as a whole

14. Christian migrants (converts), on the other hand, claim that this land belongs to CSS

(Christian Service Society – the local Missionary, and a descendent of a European Baptist

Mission set up in the south-eastern riverside of Khulna in 1860 following the

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Due to its sheer population size (hence very important as voters of national/local

elections), and for its economic importance to local industries, migrants however

could develop a negotiated relation with the land authorities during these 50+ years.

Although documents in black and white do not exist, it is the verbal promises

particularly from the Mayors and Ward Councillors from different political regimes

that assure migrants to carry on with activities such as invest in permanent houses,

rent them and even ‘sell possession rights’15

to willing buyers. Migrants frequently

mention of and associate all KCC Mayors, and a particular Ward Councillor

belonging to BNP behind whatever progress (and resilience16

) they could produce till

date towards Rupsha Char Bastee’s sustenance and fight for legalization.

The migrant settlements at Panch (5) No. Ghat (settlement 3) is believed to be located

on a site which is more than one hundred and fifty years old. The reason being that it

is located right next to the CBD of Khulna – the Boro Bazaar, a trading place around

which Khulna’s urbanization begun after EIC’s establishment of trading activities in

Early 19th C (elaborated in Chapter 4). The suffix Ghat with the settlement’s name

also refers to its proximity of Khulna’s main water transport station near Boro

Bazaar. A truck/lorry stand and the central railway station17

are also located adjacent

to this Ghat area (Figure 5.9: right). It is also within 15-20minutes walking distance

of Khulna’s most affluent housing area and the central bus station. The present

settlement 3, home to more than 1,600 migrant families, is in fact located on

establishment of salt and indigo business by EIC; see Miah 2002: 591), and they are

allowed to settle here by CSS and given the guardianship to protect this land.

15. Since no formal title exists, people who move out basically sell out their ‘claim’ on the

possession of land/dwelling unit that they developed throughout years of occupation.

Often the whole homestead (land plot and house)’s claim is sold out together.

16. This ex-Councillor, who now holds a key post in Khulna BNP, is said to have been the

most essential of allies for these Char-living migrants’ socio-spatial sustenance. In

addition to his important role as an ‘everyday’ anti-eviction activist, migrants mention of

episodic ‘hard times’, such as of a post-fire hazard period in 1994 when he had fed the

entire fire-affected community for around a month using fund collected through

donations.

17. This is the same railway station which during British rule, was used for travelling

between Khulna and Kolkata.

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Bangladesh Railways’ underutilized land at the periphery of its sprawling housing

area18

near the city centre (Figure 5.9). Although it is believed that a village-like

settlement had existed earlier – right next to the thriving Boro Bazaar area, it was the

establishment of the Ghats and the stations that heightened the demand for cheap

labour and had constantly invited additional migrant population. Following the War

of Independence in 1971, the sudden in-flow of thousands of homeless peasants saw

the mushrooming of makeshift shacks around this area since this was the only place

in the city where informal jobs were readily available. It is widely held that the

present location of settlement 3 – a low-lying paddy field originally, was first

inhibited by some of this particular batch of ‘new’ migrants. It is through their efforts,

this low-lying land was developed gradually. As this was a low-lying land, these

people had to raise the courtyards and build houses on high plinths. Thus a number of

ponds were dug out over the years, while the paddy field had gradually been

developed into an elevated land for habitation.

18. Part of which is settlement 10 – as discussed earlier.

Figure 5.9: (Left) KCC jurisdiction map showing location of Panch No. Ghat settlement

(Source: KCC 2012); (middle) built-form distribution in space (location of Harijan-para is

seen on the north of settlement 3); (right) Satellite image – selections showing respectively

(from top to bottom) – settlement 3, Panch No. Ghat, Railways housing, Khulna Railway

Station, ferry terminal and truck/lorry station. Glimpses of Boro Bazaar can also be found near

the truck/lorry station (Source: Google Earth 2012).

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Tenure history of settlement 3 again demonstrates some interesting forms of

negotiation. Although this settlement is located entirely on public (Bangladesh

Railways) property, Railways has never had any real authority to control this vast

asset19

as seen also in the case of settlement 10. During the initial settling down in

these lands during 1970s, it was not very hard for these migrants to find some corrupt

railways officials who could be ‘managed’ in exchange of ‘little returns’ (e.g.

agricultural products such as fish or monetary bribe). It is also learnt that a few such

officers were also sympathetic particularly toward people from their own area of rural

origin. However, things started to change in the early 1980s during the military-

dictator President Ershad, when a migrant-turned-Mastan rose to power (as described

in the case of settlement 10). In addition to the more designated housing areas for

Railways’ employees (e.g. settlement 10), he took control of the present day

settlement 3 area as well. This Mastan, who was also a political leader of the then

ruling party, started populating all these areas with migrants particularly from his rural

area of origin (Barishal). By 1990, settlement 3 assumed the name ‘Ershad Sikder

Bastee20

’ and continued to serve additional purposes including housing his own

musclemen, act as the remote location for his illegal businesses (drugs, arms and

possibly prostitution), and play the role of the most essential ‘vote-bank’ during

election times. However, after his eventual confiscation and execution in early 2002

during the BNP regime, thousands of these migrants have had their houses

demolished. Those living within the formal housing area (as in settlement 10) were

19. Bangladesh Railways for example, owns around 2.5km2 of land right at the central area of

the city; almost all of it is derelict and unutilized. This large chunk of land however, was

originally acquired by the British rulers as they envisaged rail sector to be the dominant

mode of transport in the future. However, Railways less-than-expected expansion during

Bangladesh period (due to road-oriented development) has pushed this organization to

such a low level of resource-scarceness that they cannot even afford to pay for a proper

maintenance of these assets it possesses – let alone develop them for purposes such as

housing. Thus most of their land property is squatted (as in settlement 3), illegally rented

(as in settlement 10), informally rented (e.g developed as hawker market) or disputed

(generally with KCC).

20. Ershad Sikder was the name of the Mastan. His name can be found in the Murderpedia

website. See, http://murderpedia.org/male.S/s/sikder-ershad.htm.

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also evicted of their houses21

. Yet again, the Mayor and local Ward Councillor

appeared on the scene realizing the political importance of this large number of

migrant populations (read ‘voters’). There was also a push from UNDP-led settlement

upgradation project (LPUPAP). Now, a more ‘formal’ negotiation took place wherein

a segment of the actors (e.g. Mayor, UNDP) acted as intermediaries between the

Railways authority and the evicted migrants. A ‘new plan’ was laid out in 2002 for

housing particularly this batch of migrant population, evicted from the formal housing

areas. New locations within the settlement were selected, while gaps within existing

areas were also filled in. Depending on family size, each household was allotted either

one or two (12’X15’) sized plots. A new name to this settlement (Greenland) was also

given by LPUPAP. Later in 2008 in the most recent effort by KCC, another process of

rehabilitating members of Harijan22

community was initiated after evicting them from

other KCC lands in Khulna. A newer site on the northern part of this settlement was

chosen by Mayor’s office and local Ward Councillor23

and named ‘Harijan-para’

(Figure 5.9: middle). Although railway authority was not keen to turn their land into a

‘rehabilitation site’, the Mayor (backed by ruling regime) ‘insisted’ to make use of

this otherwise under-utilized land for ‘public purpose’. However, for all residents of

settlement 3, the tenure status still remains de facto; migrants are neither allowed to

construct any permanent structure, nor any assurance is given about the maximum

duration they might be able to stay.

Settlement 7, which is locally known as Sath (7) No. Camp is originally a Bihari

Refugee Camp located right at the centre of Khulna’s oldest and largest planned

township of Khalishpur. The Muslim Biharis, who took refuge in post-liberation East

21. A few such houses can still be found in settlement 10, who could still sort out some

‘mechanism’ to stay back (Figure 5.5: bottom right).

22. A lowest caste Hindu community, who are generally found involved in perceived ‘lower-

level works’ such as sweeping and cleaning; a number of them work at KCC as well.

23. Although elected public representatives are not ‘theoretically’ authorized to decide on any

operational issue of public-sector organization such as Bangladesh Railways.

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Pakistan after riots in India, turned into refugees once again as Bangladesh got

liberated from Pakistan in 1971. The Biharis, who came to Pakistan and became

Pakistani citizen, naturally supported West Pakistan instead of the native Bangali in

the latter’s War of Liberation. So after the war was over and East Pakistan became

Bangladesh, the Biharis would immediately be looked at as ‘state enemies’. Many

were murdered during the war, while even more took place after the war was over.

The Bihari houses were ransacked and seized, while Biharis were forced out of their

houses/plots of land and placed in small, super-dense makeshift arrangements known

as ‘Bihari Camps24

’ (Figure 5.10: right).

For Sath No. Camp, it was the International Red Cross, who came to protect the

Biharis from the violation and gathered them on this present site that used to be an

open public space previously. Around 40 tents were set up, in which these families

24. In addition to the three camps in Khalishpur there are another two Bihari Camps that exist

in Khulna. A number of similar camps also exist in other major cities in Bangladesh. As

these people still dream of a return to Pakistan (although they never lived in the Pakistan

mainland), the latter has never been keen to recognize them as its citizen. Although

Muslim the Biharis are, they differ ethnically and culturally from Pakistani ethnicities

and culture as they did with Bangladeshis. Pakistan also considers them as potential

burden since the Biharis are mostly illiterate and unskilled for any formal sector job. Thus

this whole issue has since remained ‘political’ between the successive governments of

Bangladesh and Pakistan, while the Biharis remained stranded in these ‘camps’.

Figure 5.10: (Left) KCC jurisdiction map showing location of Sath No. Camp (Source: KCC

2012); (middle) built-form distribution in space; (right) location of Sath No. Camp and other

two refugee ‘Camps’ within Khalishpur township (Source: Google Earth 2012).

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continued to live until 1978. Around this time, President Zia’s pro-Muslim BNP

government would already have assumed power; this made access of Islamic NGOs

(such as Rabeta Al Islam) easier into this ‘politically sensitive’ settlement and

construct permanent house-plinths for the inhabitants. Other NGOs also joined in and

continued to operate with similar rehabilitation works (e.g. Concern and Caritas

provided sanitary latrines). Later in the 1990s, KCC’s first intervention saw the

construction of permanent roads and erection of light posts here. By this time

however, additional refugee population came in and filled in the gaps between

existing plots of lands – increasing the number of plots to 135 and families to 162.

Gradual encroachment of the adjacent lake also took place – both to extend present

household space and to house new refugees. Now as settlement 7 has continued to

consolidate over the past five decades and many Biharis has left25

, some Bangladeshi

(rural-urban) migrants also moved in (by buying possession rights) and started living

alongside the Bihari refugees within this settlement or adjacent to it (Figure 5.11).

25. It has been widely reported that although Pakistan did not recognize Biharis as their own

citizens, many registered themselves as Bangladeshi nationals, managed a Bangladeshi

Passport and eventually left Bangladesh for Pakistan. Some Biharis also left these camps

once they became affluent. Some previously affluent ones never actually had to leave in a

camp. Because of their better educational and social status they could already integrate

with the pre-liberation Bangladeshi society and escape violation.

Figure 5.11: Two Bangali-owned houses within Bihari refugee camp – the ‘fortified’ nature of

both these houses is noticeable; right: location of Mrs. Nurjahan’s house; left (red dotted) Mrs.

Nurjahan’s house on Khalishpur Central Mosque property but entry to her house is through

settlement 7; (left – green dotted) house location of another newly gentrified Bangladeshi

(rural-to-urban) migrant.

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Presently, the political importance of the Bihari population and their claim to this

settlement have both been reinforced as most of these refugees were issued a

Bangladeshi ‘Voter ID’ card during the elections of 2005-2006 – allowing them to

participate in all local and national polls.

Official recognition

Settlement 8:

Bakkar Bastee

Area: 0.23 Acre; Household: 35; Population: 200+;

Density 2220p/ha

Settlement 9:

People’s Panchtala

Area: 4.6 Acre; Household: 750+; Pop.: 4,000+;

Density 2160p/ha

Settlement 8 or Bakkar Bastee is a unique example of a relatively small-scale land

invasion that took advantage of the host community’s needs and eventually

culminated into acquiring an official recognition. As the name suggests, this small

Bastee within the Khalishpur Township was erected and controlled by Mr. Bakkar, a

formerly prominent Labour Sardar from the nearby Crescent Jute Mills. This gradual

process of encroachment began in 1974, as the inhabitants of this particular section of

Khalishpur housing area felt the need for enhanced vigilance and security due to a

national-level decline of law and order situation. Following their complaints to

Khalishpur Housing Society’s Chairman, and having discussed with the local Ward

Councillor, a decision was taken to erect a semi-government guard post called TDP26

(Town Defence Party) in this area. Since provision for no such space was originally

considered in Khalishpur Master Plan, a small lakeside patch of open land was

instead chosen for this purpose in the central zone of Khalishpur township (Figure

5.12: overleaf). The committee also decided that Mr. Bakkar should head this defence

26. TDP can be seen as something similar to ‘community police’; but its key difference with

community policing is that setting up a TDP post requires approval from central

Government’s ANSAR and VDP Department. So even if setting up a TDP post is

community’s need driven and run by community’s chosen members and paid by the

community, it requires prior approval from local public representatives and

administrators.

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and patrol activities since he was a proven Freedom Fighter27

(Muktijoddha in

Bangla) and also because of his reputation as a formidable Labour Sardar during his

Jute Mills days.

Although this was a demanding duty (generally night-shift works involved, with risks

of fighting dacoits), the remuneration from being a TDP employee was scant. The

expenses of the whole process were borne exclusively by the community; financial

contribution from government was negligible. Such demanding work also required

adequate manpower. All these made Mr. Bakkar think opportunistically. He therefore

asked for additional members for additional members to be included in his team for

TDP to work properly. He also proposed to the committee (consisting of Housing

Authority Chairman, Ward Councillor and local community representatives) that

dwelling units needed to be erected around the TDP office to house the families of the

27. Freedom Fighter is used to refer particularly to those civilian personnel who fought

against the Pakistan Army during Bangladesh’s War of Independence. Freedom fighters

enjoy a host of state welfare benefits. The term Freedom Fighter, which has an emotional

connotation, however has also been used in Bangladesh to gain financial and political

(read ‘unfair’) advantages. Although not all, many influential individuals use their

Freedom Fighter status to acquire state benefit, influence public-level decision making

processes, and receive political attention – often far beyond the levels they are otherwise

entitled to.

Figure 5.12: (Left) KCC jurisdiction map showing location of Bakkar Bastee (Source: KCC

2012); (middle) built-form distribution in space; (right) Satellite image (Source: Google Earth

2012).

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TDP employees (including his own) considering the nature of work involved. This

proposition was agreed upon eventually, and a total of 25 houses were built on the

lakeside using bamboo platforms. Mr. Bakkar, who was an ex Sardar, had by now

also become the undisputed leader of this small but important settlement. His TDP

colleagues were all his ‘own men’ – some of them used to be his co-workers in the

Jute Mills, while the rest were either his relatives or deshi manush from Faridpur.

Outside, this settlement began to be identified with his name while the makeshift

nature28

of dwelling units here led to its identification as a Bastee.

Now as the TDP office became a permanent (and important) establishment for this

community, and Mr. Bakkar and his team have long been serving this community,

they made an approach to the local Ward Councillor in 2000, requesting if these

small parcels of land (approximately 10,000sft) could be officially allocated to the

respective occupants. Although the Ward Councillor and KCC were interested, titling

was not possible since Khalishpur Housing Authority is controlled by National

Housing Authority (NHA) – which again is under a different central government

ministry (Ministry of Housing). Mr. Bakkar and his affiliates then went on to bribe

one of Khalishpur Housing Authority personnel to make him lobby for them in the

Ministry of Housing office in Dhaka. This effort failed since at that particular time

government was not allotting land plots to any individual. They however, kept

lobbying through their ‘known’ political channels and during different political

regimes. Through all these, by 2002, they could only manage to include their names

in the official book of ‘land records’ as present occupants (hence claimants) of this

28. The makeshift nature of dwellings owed to three factors; one, these houses were needed

to be erected quickly; two, these migrants were not allowed by Khalishpur Housing

Authority to build permanent buildings here since they did not have any legal land title;

and three, they were generally poor migrants who before coming here were living in

shacks and shanties generally – they did not have financial capacity to build otherwise.

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land. As lobbying for a formal title is ongoing still, a ‘Holding number29

’ has been

approved by KCC for each of these households – ensuring some form of recognition

at least from one government agency.

Presently 35 families live in Bakkar Bastee. Older houses (that are based on land

through years of earth-filling) are constructed mostly of brick and roofed with CI

sheet30

. The newer houses on water however are still being built on floating bamboo

platforms. Some homesteads also have small gardens – which again has become

possible through the partial filling up of lakesides. Many original TDP workers left

this settlement and new replacements came along by ‘purchasing’ the ‘possession

right’ of the vacant house/land. It is also believed that Mr. Bakkar himself still owns

at least four houses. It has also been learnt that with every transaction related to

‘possession right’ between leaving and incoming tenants, Mr. Bakkar receives some

amount of money. Neighbours say that Bakkar Bastee is in fact a good business

29. A ‘Holding number’ allows KCC to include particular households to its municipal tax-

base. It also helps determine the amount of municipal tax for that household. A ‘Holding

number’ holder has to pay yearly tax to KCC.

Figure 5.13: (Left) Bakkar Bastee: (1) location of TDP office; (2) houses on encroached

lakeside land under control of Mr. Bakkar and his associates; (3) newer lakeside

encroachments by people not residents of Bakkar Bastee (Source: Google Earth 2012);

(middle) new semi-permanent building under construction within the TDP office compound;

(right) lakeside view of TDP office, and lakeside encroachments as seen over the lake.

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proposition for Mr. Bakkar, and that new plots of land would continue to be created

by earth-filling the lakeside and would be sold to new buyers. Location 3 (Figure

5.13: left) is said to have been filled in and sold in the same manner, although Mr.

Bakkar denies it. Some neighbours seem sceptical about the new building within the

TDP office (Figure 5.13: middle) assuming that it is not actually an extension of the

present office as the TDP workers claim it is. They say ‘possession right’ of this

building would again be sold to some new intent buyers as in the earlier cases. But

since Mr. Bakkar has aged and become politically disconnected so, he does not

himself decide things (hence enjoy the monetary outcome) entirely anymore. There is

a TDP ‘committee’ now a day that remain involved in all decision-making. It is

possible that they also claim their stakes from any ‘benefits’ that accrue from any

possible transactions that are made within this little settlement.

Settlement 9 is locally known as People’s Panch-tala. It is also located in the

Khalishpur area, on one of Government-owned Jute industry’s (Peoples Jute Mills

Ltd.) land. It is one of the very few examples in Khulna where multi-storied buildings

and vacant land have been simultaneously invaded by both Jute Mills workers and

non-workers, and yet has been able to manage some form of official recognition.

However, this process of invasion of industry-sites could be related back to the events

that began in the 1960s. As highlighted in Chapter 4, massive industrialization and a

disproportionately scant housing supply by the public sector industries at that time

made even many of the ‘formal sector’ Jute Mills workers to assume ‘informal’

modes of dwelling. It is within this context, when jute production reached its peak in

late 1960s and early 1970s and was yielding a fair amount of foreign revenue,

numerous full time and part time workers still could not find their place in the Jute

30. TDP employees are not allowed by the Housing Authority to construct any permanent

roof since they do not posses any formal land title.

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Mills owned workers’ housing31

. This particular housing area, once owned by

People’s Jute Mills (Figure 5.14) which still is considered as one of Khulna’s largest

jute industries, therefore became a key location for these many workers’ eventual

place of refuge.

Although many of the workers were already living on this site ‘informally’, it was the

post-War of Independence era of early 1970s, which saw even more migrants to make

their way in to Khulna from the war-torn country sides. As reported, a few political

leaders from the ruling regime and Jute Mills’ labour union helped these migrants to

initially ‘settle down’ within this formal (planned) housing estate. Jute Mills

authorities were ‘kept quiet’, while compromises were made between the ‘politically

appropriate’ decisions and their ‘administratively right’ laws. People – both workers

and non workers also used their own social networks (kin, friends, people from same

rural region) to find a place within this walled-up premise. This process, therefore,

has gradually turned this area into a site for low-income migrant population’s refuge

– for who have been related to the nearby Jute industries for their livelihoods but yet

have not been able to find a suitable place for habitation.

31. Even in its ailing state (many employees have had their jobs cut to reduce expenditure)

People’s Jute Mills still employs a total of 3905 third- and fourth-class employees. Yet it

Figure 5.14: (Left) KCC jurisdiction map showing location of People’s Panch Tala (Source:

KCC 2012); (middle) built-form distribution in space; (right) Satellite image – showing both

the studied location and the rest of the site (Source: Google Earth 2012).

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The ‘construction, invasion and consolidation’ of these five-storied buildings32

for

which settlement 9 is called People’s Panch-tala, has a rather curious history. The

initial construction of this subsidized building complex may actually be seen as a

‘political project’ by the then military government that aimed to compensate for the

housing shortage particularly for the sheer number of third- and fourth-class

government employees including the Jute Mills workers. This particular site was

selected because of its central location and relative distance from other government-

owned industrial establishments in this area. This comparatively underutilized Jute

Mills tract of land was also the only available parcel, which was suitable for any

large-scale housing. The project was financed by the central government, and

designed and built in the late 1970s by NHA as a rentable five-storied (Panch-tala)

apartment-complex. Yet this building site and its adjacent vacant lands have

experienced waves of invasions during successive political regimes. Due to a lack of

continuous funding and a regime change, these buildings also took more time to be

completed. In fact, after construction works were finished, none of these buildings

was actually delivered to its originally targeted groups. The whole complex was left

in a ‘parentless state’ until late 1980s. These buildings neither got connected with the

municipal services nor to other public utilities. Since the buildings were not owned by

the People’s Jute Mills authority and this portion land was already appropriated from

them by the NHA, the former was reluctant to provide any of these services to

operationalize the buildings. Thus the buildings were left abandoned until a large

nationwide flood broke in 1988. To immediately rehabilitate, a number of people

living in the shacks and huts in and around the Jute Mills area (and also within this

new housing area) moved in to these vacant buildings.

provided a merely 385 housing units for them (less than 10%) (Shahed 2006: 31).

32. The site was first appropriated and then separated from People’s Jute Mills area using a

boundary wall. Later, a total of four ‘bachelor quarters’ and another four ‘family quarters’

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Political support was also plenty at that particular time, and this was probably the

opportunity that these already squatting migrants were looking for. Once they moved

in and more shacks mushroomed after the flood was over, many eviction- and

demolition-drives would take place throughout the next two and a half decades. Yet,

the migrant workers kept coming back and resettled both in the buildings and on the

vacant lands outside the buildings – making particular use of political ties and labour

union movements.

At present, around 400 units of 15’X12’ bachelor rooms (in four buildings) are

occupied and inhabited either by families or used as shared accommodation by

multiple individuals. On the other hand, there are another 80 family units (in four

buildings) used in the same ways. Originally, a Mosque, a canteen, and at least four

small play grounds and some vacant area for future extension on the northern part

was planned. The dining halls and kitchens of this complex have already been

converted into dwelling units. Only the playgrounds and the Mosque are left un-

were designed and constructed (Figure 5.14: right), all using double-loaded corridors and

maintaining a Corbusian simplicity (Figure 5.15: 3).

1

5

7

9

6

2

4

3

Figure 5.15: Panoramic view of People’s Panch Tala showing: (1) Non-permanent Katcha

buildings on its east boundary wall; (2) Playground kept uninhabited through a decision taken

by political elites in the community – annual Waaz (open-air Islamic program) takes place

here; (3) Paintwork on Building 2 of the Bachelor type quarters – cost borne by tenants of this

building; (4) Small vegetable garden developed by the ‘owner’ of the adjacent unit on

Building 2; (5) Ongoing renovation work on the ‘toilet block’– funded by an environmental

NGO (Concern Bangladesh); (6) brick building erected by political elite (in control of

Building 2) for storage of building materials (used for business); (7) building materials to be

used for constructing a new semi-permanent (Pucca) house on the other side of the road; (8)

an earlier toilet complex built previously by another NGO for the roadside Katcha house

dwellers; (9) both Katcha and Pucca houses constructed on the western boundary wall that

separates Jute Mills land from People’s Panch Tala.

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encroached presently. In addition, approximately 150 units of semi-permanent houses

can also be found in this settlement – distributed in a rather organized manner33

(Figure 5.15: 2). Above all, under the present ruling regime, the KCC Mayor has

issued holding numbers for each of these households giving them some sort of

official recognition and legitimacy.

Land rental

Settlement 2:

Quaium Shaheb er Gola

Area: 0.2 Acre; Household: 29; Population:

190+; Density 2375p/ha

This is a frequently occurring settlement type in the South-Eastern riverside of

Khulna (Figure 5.16). Since older settlements (e.g. settlement 1) could not alone

provide accommodation for all the migrants, settlements such as ‘Quaium Shaheb er

Gola’ came to provide affordable and ‘customizable’ housing for migrants for whom

settlement 1 was either expensive, or who simply needed a bigger house. Quaium

Shaheb in Bangla translates as ‘Mr. Quaium’. However, the word ‘Shaheb’ should

rather be read as a ‘gentleman’. During colonial times, ‘Shaheb’ was used to

designate the British/white people. ‘Gola’ on the other hand means a depot; this word

is used since this site, before it was converted into rentable settlement in the 1990s

had been used for wood storage and trading for about 20 years. The entire name of

this settlement therefore translates as “(honourable) Mr. Quaium’s depot”. Settlement

2 nevertheless, differs from settlement 5 in the sense that it is a privately owned land

and much bigger in size than settlement 5 land plots, and it is is rented to migrant

tenants who build their own house according to their individual needs. Tenants here

are also economically better positioned (earn at least 50% more) having a bigger

family size (hence a greater number of income-earning members) compared to the

tenants in settlement 5. In terms of site location, this one is much nearer to the city

33. As mentioned in Chapter 3, studies have been conducted on these non-permanent

buildings and on the Bachelor Type quarters; generally these are the two types that have

experienced most forms and phases of transformation over the years.

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centre compared with the peripheral location of settlement 5. Migrants use temporary

building materials34

here, since such a construction could easily be dismantled and re-

used as they move on to another similar site. Depending on the size of the ‘built area’,

rent is paid to the ‘businessman’ landlord (Mr. Quaium).

Although the landlord lives in the same site, he lives in a separate two-storied

building near the roadside front of this settlement (Figure 5.17). Contrary to

settlement 5, the landlord does not share services and utilities with his tenants here;

therefore the day to day interaction between them is limited and so is their belonging

with the tenanted space (Figure 5.17). Tenants are either already known to the

landlord, or they are someone who had to come through the landlord’s known

kinship/regional network to be qualified to live here. The landlord hence does not rent

land plots to strangers. Preference is given to migrants from a particular South-

western coastal Upazila (sub-district) of Bangladesh (Koyra) because the landlord’s

family also originates from this same Upazila35

. The activities of local merchants and

34. Generally bamboo structure, floating bamboo-plinth and CI sheet roof and walls.

35. The landlord is actually a descendent of a rural elite family; so renting out spaces to his

deshi manush also confirms the continual conveyance of information about the landlord

(and his family)’s urban affluence and elevated social status. Although not true for this

Figure 5.16: (Left) KCC jurisdiction map showing location of Quaium Shaheb er Gola

(Source: KCC 2012); (middle) built-form distribution in space; (right) Satellite image

(Source: Google Earth 2012).

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fishery industrialists mentioned in the discussion of settlement 1 provide similar

income generation opportunities for the tenants in settlement 2. Several NGOs and

the UNDP-led UPPR project also operates here providing microcredit and

health/hygiene related services36

respectively. In early 2000s, funded mainly by the

LPUPAP project, a toilet complex (4 units) was constructed.

Use rights

Settlement 6:

Vastuhara

Area: 15.8 Acre; Household: 1,200+; Population:

8,000+; Density 1250p/ha

It was during the rapid urbanization of the Post-Independence 1970s, ‘squatter

cleansing’ began to take place in all major Bangladeshi cities 37

. Later in 1974, the

government would initiate a ‘site and service scheme’ by handing over small parcels

landlord, this rural-linkage is a very common and tested mechanism that many affluent

persons (particularly politicians) practice in Bangladesh. Many local-level public

representatives typically live in the city but maintain a persistent linkage with their rural

constituency (where they get elected during national poles). This resembles of the

‘absentee Zamindar’ phenomenon as discussed in Chapter 4, where the Zamindar would

actually live and build in the city but would maintain a strong tie with his rural assets

(rural property and peasant subjects) for his social, political and financial gains

36. UPPRP however, does not invest in infrastructure projects because of the unsecured

nature of tenure here due to private ownership.

Figure 5.17: Panoramic view of Quaium Shaheb er Gola showing: (1) landlord’s house on the

left of site entry – behind this was the original wood ‘Gola’, which now is the site for

toilet/bath area; (2) houses built on rented plots; (3) low-lying land with stagnant water – less

maintained because tenants are not allowed to use it for any purpose; (4) Rafiq er Dokan – a

small grocery cum firewood shop owned by Mr. Rafiq, who is also a resident in this

settlement; (5) riverside embankment cum road (Rupsha Veri Bandh Road) and logwood

trading along the road.

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2 4

5

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of land free to the homeless in the city38

. Government’s party machine39

was used to

select ‘eligible’ squatters from a few locations of Khulna, including the Dukbangla

(Khulna’s city centre) area, Bangladesh Railways land and Daulatpur. These people

were later relocated to the newly acquired low-lying site on Khulna’s North-Western

periphery40

. Referring to their homeless status, this settlement (and a few more in

major Bangladeshi cities) was given the generic name Vastuhara41

(Figure 5.18). A

Master Plan was prepared by NHA (Figure 5.19), while in 1978, ‘semi-formal’ title

of a total 713 plots of land (30’X15’ size) was handed over to this destitute

population group in a rather curious manner42

.

37. Resulting from the pressure exerted on the government by the political elite and the press

(Choguill 1993: 329-330).

38. This attempt however contributed less to solve the actual problem of low-income

housing; it was rather designed more to justify government’s socialist idealism. Of course

low-cost land was the number one reason why this remote area was chosen in the first

place; yet, in a country, characterized by pseudo class-discrimination, this effort could

also be depicted as ‘clearing of streets from dirt’.

39. Mr. Sufian - a prominent labour-leader in Khulna and local government representative

(both from the then ruling party) were ‘in charge’ of this relocation process.

40. Almost 6km away from the city centre even in present conditions, this Vastuhara site

used to be a derelict land, now under the jurisdiction of Government’s Ministry of

Housing. Presently, it is looked after by one of ministry’s wings, the NHA and Khulna’s

city planning and regulatory authority, KDA.

41. Vastu means ‘to reside’ or the act of dwelling while hara means ‘devoid of’; together they

state of a condition of ‘homeless-ness’ or ‘uprooted from home’.

Figure 5.18: (Left) KCC jurisdiction map showing location of Vastuhara (Source: KCC

2012); (middle) built-form distribution in space; (right) satellite image showing Vastuhara in

relation with the urbanizing city all around it; highlighted areas immediately around

Vastuhara are all formal sector developments prominent amongst them are middle- and

higher-class housing projects implemented by KDA (Source: Google Earth 2012).

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Some families were also allotted more than one plot of land due to their larger family

size. Many, however, were allotted multiple allotments due to their better ‘relation’

with the party leaders. Nevertheless, not all the recipients of land stayed back in

Vastuhara. Since it was quite far away from job locations, some would already sell

these plots and go back to the city centre slums. The situation was further

compounded by its remote location characterized by unavailability of drinking water,

absence of nearby markets and the fear of vandalism. Vastuhara’s low-lying

condition (water logging was common) also made clear that an overall earth filling

would be required should any building or construction works were to take place.

During the following months, these few thousand people therefore would continue to

live in the makeshift shacks, and engage in earth-filling the whole site. Several

months later, semi-permanent houses (brick plinth, wooden structure and CI roof)

were erected in each of these 713 plots of land with NGO (CURITAS)’s financial

support (Figure 5.19: bottom-left). But unlike that in the original land use plan, only

about 16 acres of land (out of a total 33) was actually delivered in the form of these

713 plots. Although public spaces and amenities such as ‘parks’ and ‘graveyards’

were provisioned in the first Master Plan, those were never provided. In contrast, a

number of others who were also relocated alongside these fortunate 713 households

were not allotted any plot of land whatsoever. They would now start squatting on the

northern park site (area 2) and the southern graveyard site (area 3) of this formally

planned settlement (Figure 5.19: above).

Later between 1983 to1987 under military-backed President Ershad, the ‘park site’

was cleared of the migrants for making space for third and fourth class government

employee’s (mainly defence officers) housing. Being driven out from the construction

site, these migrants now resettled on all possible vacant spaces of Vastuhara; this led

42. Actually a paper called ‘allotment slip’ was initially handed-over – signed by the

government’s land administrator (DC), and witnessed by NGO representatives. This ‘slip’

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to the further densification of the 42 plots of land where some migrant families were

already residing. On the other hand, 68 semi-permanent rentable units were

constructed through government funding while 42 plots of land (each 2,500sft) were

created and sold out to external buyers. These buyers, however, never returned to

claim possessions of their purchased land plots because these purchased plots were

already being squatted by non-allotted migrants. Some parts were also being

controlled by a few politically influential tenants of Vastuhara; in most of these areas,

it was their ‘own men’ who were in claim and possession.

however does not resemble any formal title document in Bangladesh.

Figure 5.19: (Above) three plans showing three different realities of Vastuhara: (above-

middle) Vastuhara’s original Master Plan showing location of 713 plots on area 3, while a

park on north (area 2) and a graveyard cum Mosque area on south (area 3); (above-right)

Vastuhara as of today, where area 2 being completely transformed in the same way as in a

formal sector housing; (above-left) 2011’s proposed Master Plan by NHA – it shows a

complete replacement of present dwelling environments with 58 ‘Corbusian blocks’ (5-storied

- 200’X22’), each meant for housing 60 families; (bottom-left) remains of one of the first

Katcha house prototype, built by CARITAS in 1978; (bottom-middle) new middle-class multi-

storey house on area 2; (bottom-right) Mr. Dipu, the second generation of one of Vastuhara’s

original inhabitants and a local level political leader of Bangladesh Awami League (current

ruling party) showing the pond on area 3, which he is lease-holding presently.

2

1

3

2

1

3

2

1

3

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In the latter half of 1990s, the entire area constituted by these 42 unclaimed plots was

given the ‘politically fitting’ name ‘Muktijoddha Colony’ (Freedom Fighters’

Colony) (Figure 5.19). These inhabitants were never evicted since. Meanwhile, the

western fringe Khulna city would already close in on Vastuhara. By early 2000s,

KDA would already lay out grids of a new site and services township (Figure 5.18:

right); the plots were later sold out to the middle class clients. This made land price in

Vastuhara to escalate further. In fact all of Vastuhara’s land is better developed

(through the many years of efforts by the inhabitants) than those developed by KDA.

This made KDA to develop (by land-filling the lake) another 37 plots of land on the

northern periphery of Vastuhara and again sell them to external buyers. These plots

of land could not be invaded as in the earlier 42 plots; these were middle-class buyers

who would quickly erect buildings akin to any typical middle class housing areas

(Figure 5.19: bottom-middle). Various modes of gentrification and politicization

however are still ongoing in Vastuhara. During a recently held meeting on

Vastuhara’s future involving the local land administrator (DC), Mayor (from the

same political party that is in power presently), city-level political leaders of the same

party and the particular Vastuhara residents, who are also leaders and supporters of

this party – propositions were made for a change in Vastuhara’s name43

. Possibility

of a Corbusian mass-housing type development of this settlement to house ‘more’

urban poor was also discussed here (Figure 5.19: above-left). This politically

‘charged’ decision and its top-down (and exclusionary) nature however makes any

prediction about Vastuhara’s further spatio-physical transformation quite tricky.

43. The proposed name is “Bongobondhu Nagor”; Bongobondhu (meaning ‘friend of

Bengal’) however is an alias to Mr. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman – the first Prime Minister of

independent Bangladesh, and father of present Prime Minister (Chairperson of

Bangladesh Awami League – one of the two major political parties in Bangladesh). It was

during his tenure as a PM in 1974, this idea of a ‘site and services’ scheme for the poor

was originally conceptualized. Nagor, on the other hand, means town or township. So,

this current proposal basically aims to officially rename this settlement after

Bongobondhu.

161

Many in Vastuhara are actively involved in party-politics, which often yields a

certain level of personal gain44

. Yet, despite the political difference there may exist

between the inhabitants45

, they also remain closely bonded and move strategically

together when it comes to the question of existence for Vastuhara as a whole. The

inhabitants speaks of a community organization (Vastuhara Samaj Unnayan

Committee) in which committees are formed through selection (composed mostly of

elders) and used mainly for arbitration, decision-making and management of the

community resources, institutions and infrastructure. But when political lobbying is

required for decision-making on Vastuhara’s future, committees are formed in a way

where some ruling-party people’s involvement is always ensured (someone like Mr.

Dipu46

). This constant affiliation with political parties seems to have helped

Vastuhara’s sustained growth and development over the years. This is evident in the

example of the 2011 meeting as mentioned earlier. In order to formalize their claim

on Vastuhara land, migrants’ ability to arrange a meeting involving the local land

administrator, key leadership of the ruling party and also the persistent lobbying of

the concerned ministers – all tell of the political capacity of these once-destitute

group of migrants, who now boast themselves as a community. Needless to say, such

politics, involving both everyday and episodic events, are carried out in order to

harness the ‘best possible’ level of sustainability for their place of habitation.

44. I came across Mr. Dipu who belongs to the current ruling party; one assumes that this

association with the larger power has played an important part in giving him the needed

opportunity to leasehold a large pond for fisheries (Figure 5.19: bottom-right).

45. During early 1990s, events of severe violence in Vastuhara could be noted; supporters of

each of the two main political parties are said to have engaged against each other

regarding the political control of Vastuhara. Violence also led to the killing of residents

and eviction.

46. Amongst others, Mr. Dipu actually was invited to the 2011 meeting on the future of

Vastuhara (discussed earlier) as a ‘community representative’. Although it was a

‘political meeting’ since no local BNP leaders or BNP-supported Vastuhara residents

162

5.2.2 Threads of themes: settlement tenure, control and spatial boundaries

The following table summarizes the key threads and themes in terms of settlement

tenure, ownership and control, and spatial boundaries as they occur in the prior

discussions on tenure history.

Table 5.1: Threads of themes: settlement tenure, control and spatial boundaries

Name ‘Actual’ tenure status Important themes

Set

tlem

ents

1,

3,

7

De

fact

o t

enu

re - For settlement 1, KCC and

other public-sector

organizations extend their

services; not recognized by

KDA.

- For settlement 3, migrants are

allowed to settle against

Railways (owner)’s will;

tenure is secured as long as

politicians want.

- Tenure status is likely to

remain unsettled due to the

political nature of Bihari

issues.

- Socio-political ‘arrangement’ with land

owner (Government, and its other agencies)

for securing present occupancy; formal

actors (chief amongst them being KCC)

acting positively as ‘negotiators’ between

migrants and Government (agencies).

- Dubious land tenure however, remain

subject to the interpretation of influential

agents.

- Global-level companies form alongside

‘slum’ locations – opposite to present say

- Often new name of the settlement is desired

by migrant communities to form a new

identity, while erasing the previous.

Set

tlem

ent

2

Lan

d r

enta

l - Planning and construction of

rentable units not approved by

KDA.

- Regional/kinship network seems necessary

to manage a place in the city; strangers are

not allowed to come and start living

immediately.

- ‘Connections’ with city-living ex-rural elite

to secure a place; a more Master-Servant

(traditional) relation becomes evident.

Set

tlem

ent

4

Reg

iste

red

lea

seh

old

- Many fear of eviction once the

25 year lease period would be

over (for land price hike).

- Emigration, incoming refugees and migrant

farmer affecting urbanization

- Concentration of a certain regional group to

claim and control secure settlement spaces,

and ensure tenure security.

were invited, Mr. Dipu’s presence even amongst his own party leaders ensured some level

of community participation to the least.

163

Set

tlem

ent

5

Fre

eho

ld - Planning and construction of

rentable units not approved by

KDA.

- Most emerging type driving urbanization at

the city fringe area.

- Urbanization by peasants and migrants; and

through Master-Servant interactions.

- Hard to categorize settlement as slum due to

its access to services and utilities.

Set

tlem

ent

6

Use

rig

hts

- ‘Allotment slip’ is yet to be

converted into a proper title

deed. Chances are waning as

government considers new

(experimental) schemes.

- Informalization of formally planned housing

area (for low income migrants) by official

bodies themselves.

- ‘Political use’ of settlement and its spaces

through: (re)naming, allotment,

(re)territorialization and decision-making.

Set

tlem

ents

8,

9

Off

icia

l re

cog

nit

ion

- KCC and other public-sector

organizations extend their

services; not recognized by

Khalishpur Housing Authority.

- In 2013, all tenants in

possession have been allotted

‘Allotment slips’ akin to

Settlement 6.

- Relatives, Deshi-Manush and Jute Mills

worker-leaders contributing to the

transformation (and remaking) of urban

form.

- ‘Informalized’ settlements provide housing

to low income people working in and for

Jute Mills who were never formally housed

by Jute Mills themselves.

Set

tlem

ent

10

Pu

bli

c re

nta

l - Informal construction by

tenants (addition, repairing

etc.), renting, subletting and

possession selling; known but

not approved by Railways IW

department.

- Densification of public housing by illegal

renting, subletting, re-territorializing,

developing, construction, modification and

even ‘selling out possession right’; migrant

worker-turned-Mastan and corrupt Railways

officials ‘in-charge’ of these ‘development’.

5.2.2 Problem with categorization

The theoretical classification of tenure types (based on Chapter 2 categories) as in the

first column of Table 5.1, however, is in no way absolute. As the second column

suggests, the ‘actual’ tenure status has in fact remained unsettled for most of these

settlements47

. This seems particularly true for those large-scale settlements

categorized under ‘de facto’ and ‘officially recognized’ types – whose tenure is

neither formal nor absolutely informal. One therefore questions the meaning of the

47. Apart from the privately owned properties as in settlements 2 and 5, and the official

leaseholders such as settlement 4.

164

term ‘official’ and the role ‘official’ plays in the upgrading and sustenance of these

settlements. As observed, there are two forms of ‘official’ that are commonly at work

in the context of these rather ‘speculative settlements48

’. One, the bureaucratic

organizations under central government (such as Department of Land Administration,

NHA, KDA and Khalishpur Housing Authority etc.); and two, the Local Government

institution – the Khulna City Corporation (KCC). So as seen in most cases, it is the

second amongst the ‘official’ organizations – which is KCC, has proved more

‘useful’ so far. For understandable reasons (e.g. legitimacy and local accountability

that counts during poll times), the Mayor and the Ward Councillors have remained

the key actors playing important roles in officially recognizing these settlements and

helping migrant groups to obtain de facto security (by issuing holding numbers). On

the contrary, for there has been no need for local-level accountability and legitimacy,

the role of other bureaucratic departments has remained the opposite49

. And when

these departments were actually involved, their activities generally remained

embroiled with corruption and ineptness. This, for example, has been seen in the case

of settlement 10, which is mentioned under ‘Public rental’ category, yet allowed to

operate and grow informally by the Railways officials. Similar was the role of

Khulna’s Land Administration Authority’s activities as they approved the leasehold to

settlement 4 only after being bribed.

Here, Vastuhara’s example can particularly be used to demonstrate the ultimate

making of an ‘in-between’ tenure situation even in the extensive presence of public-

sector organizations (NHA). Figure 5.20 (above-left) shows the typical ‘Land

Allotment Slip’, which was issued by NHA in 1977. However, this is the only official

48. I borrow this term from Raharjo (2010).

49. A third type of central Government organization, such as Bangladesh Power

Development Board (responsible for electricity supply) has been supportive of the

Mayor’s office since it has continued to provide electricity connections to all these

‘apparently illegal’ settlements against the given holding numbers provided by the

Mayor’s office (KCC).

165

document that each of the allotted households possesses till date. What makes this

document interesting is that it does not mention anything about the type of ownership

the migrant recipients are entitled to. No supporting document was provided by NHA

either, which would explain the relevant terms and conditions for inhabiting the land-

plots of Vastuhara. Talking to Vastuhara’s migrant residents, it would naturally occur

that they are the owners of this land. A walk through this settlement would also

certainly support this claim because most areas within this settlement clearly assume

such a ‘permanent’ appearance (particularly due to these once-destitute inhabitants’

heavy investments in the various permanent constructions) that one would never be

cynical about its tenure status (Figure 5.20: bottom). Yet, it is only in 2011, it became

clear that NHA had actually rented the land at a rate of 10 Taka/month/plot (Figure

5.20: above-right).

Figure 5.20: (Above-left) Land Allotment Slip given to Vastuhara residents in 1977; (above-

right) portions of page 2 from proceeding from a 15 April 2011 meeting; this formal meeting

was held between NHA officials, Khulna’s land administrator, local political leaders from

present ruling regime, and Vastuhara’s elders. The meeting was intended to update the current

land tenure situation in Vastuhara, and discuss a government proposal for replacing present

land tenure with government funded mass apartment blocks; (bottom – from left to right)

Vastuhara High School, Vastuhara Central Mosque and permanent house replacing the Katcha

house.

166

One only wonders why tenure details were not clearly articulated on the Government

allotted slip or stated to the recipients while land was being ‘allotted’ initially. One

also becomes sceptical about the true intension of the then government (and its

associated political machinery). Given the circumstances, three particular reasons can

be hypothesized. First, it is through the partial deliverance of this ‘site and services’

scheme, the government could actually demonstrate (its political idea) to the public

and to its donors (e.g. World Bank). Second, this unsettled tenure status kept the

migrant settlers interested in the Government (hence its local level political leaders) –

a permanent title would actually have liberated the former. Third, in-between-ness

was also important for NHA and Land Administration departments alike, since they

would have realized that these people’s tenure status needed to be kept just as

obscure; in their bureaucratic interest50

, such a decision was important because it

would have left options ‘open’ for future interpretation and manipulation of the

tenure terms and conditions if deemed necessary.

How does, then, one comprehend the actual nature of tenure for each of these

settlements since the definitions associated with the theoretical categories appear less

meaningful in the day to day affairs of Khulna’s migrant settlements? This is exactly

why, UN-HABITAT (2004: 8)’s “Non-formal tenure system”, which attempts to

combine all sorts of extra-legal tenure types under a general category, does not help

much. It does not facilitate a clear understanding of the tenure status of settlements

which have partial recognition from some government agencies while others, quite

paradoxically, does not recognize their existence. Although “land rental” from private

owners may be seen as a formal tenure as in settlement 2, KDA clearance is not

sought for building activities here. From this, one fails to understand the exact sort of

land tenure type under which these two could be categorized.

50. Land administration is one of the most corrupt public sectors in Bangladesh (CARE

2003).

167

On a similar note, Payne (1997)’s classification – although having a more detailed

definition of tenure types compared to UN-HABITAT’s, suffers from a lack of

mention of involved actors/agents, and their ‘political’ role in the ‘actual’ state of

tenure and its changing parameters. The rather complex and shifting nature of tenure

for each of these settlements, which, to a large extent depends on the interpretation

and intension of the involved elitist actors/agents, hence is a rarity in the aforesaid

classifications. The everyday and sporadic acts of negotiation, both socio-political

and spatio-physical – in which the ordinary migrants engage in order to sustain their

claim on the piece of land or dwelling unit – remain generally absent from both of

these classifications. Although Raharjo (2010: 15-36)’s review mentions of different

acts of negotiation between tenants and owners during and following the “settlement

process”, the understanding of how settlement boundaries at its many levels are

controlled still becomes an area of interest for a further and deeper understanding of

these various tenure classification models.

5.3 Spatial practices and control of boundaries

This section highlights the spatial activities in which the permanent migrant engages

in order to control the spatial boundaries of his/her dwellings and neighbourhoods.

This includes those spatial activities, which can be viewed as responses to and in

relation with the aforementioned created conditions by the authoritative regimes.

5.3.1 Everyday spatial occupation and personalization

5.3.1.1. Personal space and primary territory

Figure 5.21 (overleaf) compares between the spatial organization of household

spaces, which are selected from three different settlements. House-spaces are marked

and outlined in terms of ‘front and back’ and ‘contact zones’ (private and semi-

private areas). Photographs are used also to show the nature of ‘display’ that each of

these house-forms offers to the public realm.

168

Figure 5.21: Personal space and primary territory – (left to right) S4H4, S1H3 and S3H4

house plans compared: (Row 1) house-front areas; (Row 2) private zones including female

areas; (Row 3) semi-private zones; (Row 4) photos showing ‘public front’ of the houses.

Street

Street

Street

Street

Street

Street Street

Street

Street

169

Figure 5.21 shows that in all of these households, there are zones which could

certainly be identified as ‘front-house’ and ‘back-house’ (female areas) in the

traditional sense, yet the same zone also falls under the semi-private or more public

category as well. The same space that is used for an entry to the house is also often

used for cooking and dining. A clear distinction between private and public zones is

hard to delineate. Often the most private of spaces (toilet and bathing space) are

found located outside the house. In fact, for around 80% of the studied households,

this finding remains constant as private and public space often overlap into a single

space. The opposite is also evident where the neighbours are allowed to use private

functions (bathing and water collection) located within the private house (Figure

5.34: middle). On the other hand, the photographs show that a desire for maintaining

a conventional level of privacy still remains strong. None of these houses actually

provides any direct opening on the front streets (except for the Goat-house on S4H4)

to retain privacy – although sacrificing lighting, ventilation and view. Yet,

compromises are made between ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’, and between ‘public’ and

‘private’ zones of spaces. In the particular ‘scarce’ context of these settlements, these

findings show that privacy practices (hence, boundary control) remain a ‘negotiated’

concept, and the adjustments and readjustments of socio-spatial boundaries contribute

to a desired level of territorial control and hence to households’ identity formation.

5.3.1.2. Territorial practices and public territories

In everyday processes of territorial occupation and personalization, household

boundaries and areas adjacent to the house are marked, maintained and protected by

the migrants. A variety of techniques, including both territorial behaviour (rules,

norms or particular practices such as surveillance) and non-verbal means (e.g. signs,

marking device, moveable objects etc.) are deployed51

. Particularly the ‘public’

51. Rules and norms are discussed in section 5.4; surveillance is discussed in Figure 5.22:

analyses 1 and 2. Other non-verbal means are shown in all three analyses in Figure 5.22

170

alleyways within informal settlements (called Goli locally), on which the houses are

situated, become something similar to secondary territories. These alleyways with

their surrounding households remain under community surveillance and subject to

both personal and group encroachment on the basis of neighbours’ approval. For

boundary demarcation, small trees or little shrubs of vegetable are used instead of

boundary walls, fences or other barriers. Thus a territory is claimed more in a

compromised manner, and without truly conveying a strong sense of physical

‘defence’ as in typical middle class neighbourhood. The three examples in Figure

5.22 further highlight these territorial practices.

Landlord’s verandah; she looks over to the Goli entry and on to

the street, to her poultry cage and to the bathing area

Additional

construction of wood and bamboo over

KCC drain; this

could be removed if KCC protests. The

removal thus would

not affect building structure and present

use

Drain-cover made of

wood planks; used

for tenants’ entry,

bathing and cooking

Stone blocks to

control entry for unwanted vehicles;

strangers are asked

or informed before entering the Goli

Doorstep on the common area

marks household territory;

women gossip on doorsteps and look after each other’s

playing children on the street

Windows and doors on

ground level, perforated surface, very close walls

made of thin wood help see

and listen to street activity

Ever-bustling space for water collection and bathing; time

and gender managed.

Maintenance cost shared by residents. Mutually respected

privacy.

Dulal’s carton shop; cartons

supplied to ice factories &

other fish-supply activities. Dulal, a resident of this Goli

is mostly present including

holidays & in the midnight. He also takes account of the

people coming in or going

out. The shop can be seen on left of the two standing

women

Entry to Ranga Miah

Goli from main road

KCC built rented

shops; most shop-owners live in the

settlement; they can

watch who goes in and who comes out.

This also helps them

earn trust and

maintain good

relation with

community

Moveable objects (landlord’s poultry cage and Dulal’s

carton boxes placed during

different times in a day);

these also help claim territory

1

Allah, inscribed in Arabic on both side

of landlord’s door;

sign conveys this is a

Muslim house

Clothe-drying

poles located

in front of every house

also claims

the house-front space

Figure 5.22a: Territorial analysis 1 – house-neighbourhood section of S1H1.

171

Figure 5.22b: (Above) territorial analysis 2 – house-neighbourhood section of S7H2; (current

page: below) territorial analysis 3 – house-neighbourhood section of S10H1.

‘Informal’ line of control

extends beyond the road and up to the public

sewer drain; drain

maintenance cost borne by tenants

Bamboo fencing used by tenants to mark personal

‘control line’ of the Railways

land as in a privately owned property (photo below right)

Katcha (non-permanent) house added on with original

brick-built Railways quarters

House-front open-space used by the

adjacent tenant for

vegetable garden

Water collection

and washing

area; used only by the

subletting

tenants

Trees, both large and

small, are used to mark

edges and corners of the ‘property boundary’

(photo: above left)

Thoroughfare not possible

using this road for its twisting

‘village-like’ nature; only the known personnel can make

their way through

Outdoor cooking pit

used during dry winter months;

partially enclosed

area using palm

leaves (left side

photo); privacy is

not affected because of known/predictable

movements on the

adjacent streets No window provided on

the roadside

shows desire for privacy

3

2 Kalloo’s hotel; landmark restaurant and

busy tea-stall where all letter to this

otherwise anonymous settlement are

addressed to and delivered; Kalloo is one of the oldest residents of settlement 7

New steel gate (photo

below) funded by Ward Councillor; road started

to be used by outsiders

(particularly bikers) for thoroughfare; gate

installed to retain privacy

of the bathing space

Imam Bara (Shia

Muslim’s religious shrine); yearly festivals

take place here; used &

maintained by Bihari community (photo below)

Steel-

gateway for entry

and exit

to house; adjacent

photo

shows it

High boundary wall

on the Mosque side

Mosque property, a pond

earlier – now a playground; Bangali landlord is a tenant of

this property but has to use

the Bihari colony for entrance

Small grocery shop cum house; shop

remains open in night times also

Small steel-door to ‘informally’ exit to

the playground area also used for clothe

drying

Ruling party leader’s

photo on house wall

conveying landlord’s political power; this

reduces eviction threat

from Mosque committee & helps

stay ‘safe’ in this non-

Bangali community

Small grocery shop cum shop-owner’s residence

Newly ‘gentrified’ Bangali migrant-

house within this Bihari settlement; enclosed courtyard; invisible activity

Day-school built and

run by a local NGO; both rooms used by

other NGOs and

UPPRP committee for meetings as well

Water tank, washing,

bathing and toilet area; space bustle with

activities; space is

managed respecting the female user’s time

172

Commonly, ‘encroachment’ has a negative connotation with regard to territorial

practices. But in the context of migrant settlements, encroachment into each other’s

boundaries may alternatively be viewed as acts of socio-spatial ‘negotiations’. Thus,

as much as the words Violation or Invasion (as in Altman 1975: 121) make sense of

migrants’ initial encroachment of public property, they appear less meaningful in the

everyday spatial practices for territoriality at the house-neighbourhood levels.

Although primary territories (house premise) are not given up readily, the public

territories (neighbourhood streets and open spaces) are given up and shared quite

often – particularly through long years of living together and mutual understanding of

each other’s needs and behaviour.

Indeed, undesignated and ambiguous territories are to be found among the migrant

settlements as well. This is manifested in the perceived lack of ownership of

territories by the users, resulting often from the lack of a clear definition of

boundaries. Areas as such could be viewed as ‘grey zones’ (both physically and

metaphorically), where the tenants, being tentative about who is actually in control,

do not engage in the usual spatio-physical practices to assume territorial control. This

Figure 5.23: (Right) Christian group’s claimed area within settlement 1 – marked within this

area are the locations of two ponds (disputed and hence ill-maintained) who’s ownership is

claimed by both KCC and Christian Missionary; (left) Christian migrant’s building stilts on

the grey-water pond.

5

5

173

is further exacerbated by the presence of other contesting actors. As seen in

settlement 1 (Figure 5.23), the central ponds are located on the decade-old disputed

portion of land which both Christian Missionary and KCC claims to be theirs52

. Since

KCC does not have the necessary resources to regularly monitor this property, while

CSS keeps sending Christian population groups to settle down on the ponds’

peripheral locations, the remaining of the pond area have gradually turned into a

household ‘dumping site’ for garbage and discharge. A somewhat tentative

encroachment is also common around the pond-sides, where the users commonly

extend particularly the service (kitchen, toilet) areas of their house.

5.3.1.3 Boundaries between settlement and outside world

For settlements 1, 2, 4, 8, 9, at least one of their physical boundaries is demarked by

high (commonly 7’ to 8’) boundary walls (Figure 5.24: right). All such walls are

constructed by owners of neighbouring properties53

; this includes both individual

(private) and institutional (public) owners. For a non-permeable nature of these walls,

neither visual nor physical access is possible; walls here play the role of a separator.

On the other hand, the remaining of the settlements has rather permeable boundary

conditions through which they could grow horizontally. In the case of Vastuhara, for

example, a small village is already forming on its west and south-west corner (Figure

5.24: left), which were, not many years ago, a paddy field owned by distant villagers.

New roads are being constructed and connected with Vastuhara’s grid iron streets,

while a possibility to ‘plug-in’ with a ‘serviced settlement’ such as Vastuhara is

attracting potential new buyers every day. A similar finding characterizes settlement

4 where the present dwellers are already considering a purchase of adjacent land right

52. Discussed earlier in the Settlement history under section 5.1.

53. Boundary walls are a common way to demark one’s property in this part of Bangladesh.

Both private and public bodies, located in both rural and urban areas, show this tendency

to secure land property as soon as they acquire its ownership. Construction of a

permanent boundary wall may even take place years before the actual building

construction take place on that site.

174

outside its western boundary (Figure 5.24: middle). The purchase is a likely prospect

due to the under-developed nature of this land and also for its low price for being

located on the city fringe area.

Figure 5.25 summarizes the boundary condition for each of these settlements. As the

illustrations show, although a few are bounded with or being separated by high

boundary walls of adjacent properties, these settlements also have developed an

interesting ‘public interface’ in the way the many non-dwelling functions are being

distributed along their main approach roads. Among 9 out of the 10 settlements

(except for settlement 5 due to its scattered and sprawling nature), even if the

dwelling environment is generally hidden from the public eye, the roadside secondary

functions (e.g. grocery shops, restaurants, tea-stalls, political offices, storage

facilities, wet markets, firewood stalls etc.) commonly draw in people from both

neighbouring and distant parts of Khulna city. Complementary to Dovey and King

(2011: 20)’s “Inner urban block” category where the formal facades keep the informal

ones invisible and protected from thoroughfares, here in Khulna the spatio-physical

permeability of settlement boundaries is certainly heightened through this

reciprocated exchange on the public facade of settlements.

Figure 5.24: (Left) village forming around Vastuhara’s south and west periphery; (middle)

CDC leader showing vacant land on Runner Math periphery – house building has started

taking place already; (right) high boundary wall with barbed wire on the western boundary of

settlement 2; walls are built by CARITAS, LGED, BIWTA and Bangladesh Bank Housing.

175

is

7 8 9 10

4 5 6

1 2 3

Figure 5.25: Boundary conditions of settlements.

Road

Potential areas of expansion

Boundary walls

Middle/lower-middle class neighbourhood

Location of trade, commerce and institutions

Location of Industries and production

176

There are also religious, educational and health facilities that can frequently be found

within these settlements (Figure 5.26). All of the religious institutions in and around

these settlements are run by the donations and various contributions made by

Figure 5.26: (Above) non-dwelling and non-commercial functions within settlements; (below)

locations of religious buildings (from left to right): ‘Baptist Church’ on the grey water pond in

settlement 1; Harijan-para ‘Kali Mandir’ in settlement 3 (upper view is from 2011, and lower

is from 2012); second Masjid (mosque) in settlement 6.

3 4

6 7 8 9

5

5

5 5

5

5 5

5

5

5

5

5 5

5

5

5

5

5

1

Road

Settlement boundary (tentative)

Places of religious significance

Educational and health facilities

5

177

respective migrant communities. On the other hand, the educational and health

facilities are commonly funded and managed by NGOs54

. In addition to their spiritual

and functional (and developmental) significance however, these institutional facilities

also serve another important purpose. Presence of these rather ‘positive’ functions

within these otherwise negatively attributed settlements (typical of slums and

Bastees) helps ‘earn a good name’ for these communities. As outsiders send their

children to study in the schools within these settlements (settlement 6), or as people

come for their daily prayers in the Mosques of these settlements (settlement 1), more

opportunities are created for the migrant communities to mix with outsiders having

different socio-economic backgrounds. In the extreme case, people from different

faiths might even come and join in; Figure 5.26 (middle-circled) shows a Muslim

woman waiting before the Harijanpara Hindu temple at settlement 3 for a spiritual

healing session to commence. In addition to the permeability of spatio-physical

boundaries, this example shows evidences of a fusion of social boundaries as well.

Such fusion thus appears to be a deliberate construct by migrant communities where

particular buildings and spaces are used in a way to facilitate their social

‘mainstreaming’ and hence identity formation.

5.3.2 Need for territorialization

With reference to the theoretical discussions in Chapter 2, this section discusses the

raison d’être of the territorial practices and activities that have been highlighted so

far. Three particular forces can be identified; these are: context-based aspirations,

incremental growth and income generation. Where appropriate, discussions are also

made about the associated social, spatial, and/or political gains.

54. Only in the case of settlement 6 (Vastuhara), a secondary school is run by the community.

178

5.3.2.1 Contextual aspirations

According to Ghafur (2004: 268), home is the centre of a holistic existence of any

individual or a social group in Bangladeshi culture and tradition. In addition to

providing a place for living, home is where people are grounded socially – to the

extent that it gives them social identity (e.g. a boy is called the son, or a woman is

called the wife – of a certain home). However, the concept of home in the traditional

sense becomes meaningful only when home is viewed as a part of the Samaj55

. To

belong to a home in the Bangladeshi social setting, Ghafur asserts, is essentially to be

part of the Samaj (Opcit.). In his discussions however, Ghafur does not elaborate on

the ‘aspirations’ that underlie the ownership of ‘home’ he mentions of. Therefore,

home-ownership makes sense only when discussed in relation with the contextually

significant concepts namely: Zamin, Vita, Ghar, Bari, Basha, Bariwala and Desh. As

all of these terms have been frequently mentioned by the migrants, there is a need to

view migrants’ home-making efforts in relation to these.

Desire to become ‘middle-class’ (both socially and materially) is what drives

migrants’ home-making efforts in Khulna. In the city, any house-owner would be

called a Bariwala – literally meaning ‘the house-owner’. In common sense, Bari-wala

refers to that middle-class urbanite whose social status has been upgraded by a

number of urban accomplishments chief amongst which is the ownership of a house

in the city. In view of the vast majority of tenants compared to (land/house) owners in

Khulna56

, being a Bari-wala is clearly an economically advantageous position. In

addition, there are significant social benefits from this pertaining to someone’s social

55. Although literally means ‘society’, in the Bangladeshi context Samaj implies more to ‘a

community’ – an immediate social milieu constituted primarily by neighbors, relatives,

friends and deshi manush within a larger socio-spatial setting.

56. More than 20% of the city dwellers are landless slum-dwellers in Khulna (almost all of

them are considered ex-migrants) (KCC-LGED-UNDP 2009); amongst these slum

dwellers, 27% own a house while 66% are tenants (Ahmed 2005: 10).

179

status within the Samaj57

. For example, for the migrant landlord whose house is

rented to the NGO for a school (as in Figure 5.35: right), the house now becomes a

symbol of her socio-spatial elevation. It now expresses the migrant’s upgraded social

status to that of a Bari-wala within her Samaj, and continues to act as a physical

landmark at the level of the overall settlement.

The term Bari, in Bangla, means both a homestead and place of origin (village) –

referring essentially to a sense of rootedness. A Bari consists of Zamin (land), a Ghar

(house) and the Vita58

. Having none of these, the city house, however, is naturally

called a Basha (meaning bird’s nest), referring to the opposite – the transience and

temporary-ness associated with city life. No rented house in the city is called Bari.

The urban house becomes anonymous and un-contextual due its lack of connection

with Desh. Roy (2004: 149) refers to desh as “a word meaning both country and

countryside, signifying a sense of belonging through a bond with the land”. So, it

comes as no surprise that in the particular cultural context of Bangladesh, someone as

in the condition of a migrant would like to become a Bari-wala (and possess a piece

of Zamin and Ghar) in the city any way possible. It is only this particular status that

would re-induce a sense of rootedness in the lives of these otherwise uprooted

migrants. A new identity thus would eventually be created within a new Samaj.

Additionally, this process of identity formation would be further enhanced in the

presence of and comparison with his/her deshi manush as his/her tenants or as

members of Samaj59

(Figure 5.27). Figure 5.28 also shows the occurrence of village-

57. For example, being a Bari-wala also plays an important part during ‘marriage talks’

between families. Men or women, whose parents own an urban house are ranked socially

higher, and deemed more eligible over those who do not own any (e.g. renter).

58. The literal meaning of Vita is plinth; but allegorically it refer to the ‘root’ where one

originates from, to the grounded-ness of the particular household with this particular piece

of land in the agrarian society, to the memories of the ancestors associated with this piece

of land, and to the sense of identity that occurs from these phenomenon in combination.

59. Discussions on Settlements 2 and 5 in Section 5.1 underscore similar issues with other

socio- political gains from being a Bari-wala.

180

like microcosms with dispersed arrangements60

even within the land-scarce

settlements – bringing along additional socio-political benefits particularly for the

settlement elites61

.

60. Please refer to Muktadir and Hasan (1985) and Ahmed (2006) for similar discussions.

61. Dispersed arrangement of houses (Figure 5.28) also helps claim larger portions of vacant

land. Concentrating house forms on a single location would have allowed others to make

Figure 5.27: Houses where both landlord and tenants live alongside (from left to right): S5H1,

S1H1, S6H4 and S8H2.

Figure 5.28: Village-like spatio-physical organization of households; larger forms are living

areas while the smallest ones are the locations of toilets and baths. Kitchen locations are

shown by the mid-sized forms; (from left to right) – S6H1, S3H4 and S4H3.

181

5.3.2.2 Facilitate incremental growth

Incremental growth has remained the most frequently occurring way of formal-spatial

transformation of migrant households. In addition to the ‘Bari-wala aspiration’,

satisfaction also comes from otherwise sources. Particularly in the space-scarce

migrant houses, trade-offs are made between comfort and savings as Peattie (1994:

138) demonstrates. It is not that living in shacks or ‘lesser’ houses is pleasant. Rather,

pleasure tend to occur from being able to make a living (or even become a Bari-wala)

without much investment and from that, saving “valuable dimes” for dealing with

potential moments of livelihood-related contingencies.

There are however, a number of forces that usually instigate incremental spatio-

physical transformation of migrant households; these are: accumulation of material

possessions, escalating household needs (e.g. growing family size) and offsetting

various socio-economic challenges (e.g. declining income level). In response to these,

transformation may take place, (a) using existing infrastructure as ‘datum’, and (b)

using house form as ‘core’ and adding subsequent parts to it in response to changing

socio-economic-spatial conditions. Transformation may also assume different forms

as in, (c) a particular part may morph into different shapes and usages, and (d)

adjacent plots may be stitched together into a third generic shape (Figure 5.29:

overleaf).

a claim; this also reveals of a long and persistent power difference between migrant

populations even during their initial encroachment of land decades ago

182

c

Figure 5.29: (a – left to right) an overhead Water Tank, a boundary wall and community

defense office used as reference, against and around which all incremental constructions took

place in Settlements 3, 10 and 8 respectively; (b) phases of physical transformation of S1H1;

(c – left to right) verandah transformation in S8H2, S10H1, S2H1 and S7H4; (d – left to right)

adjacent plots purchased and built on in S1H3, S6H3 and S6H4.

TDP (Town

Defence Party)

office

Boundary wall

separating People’s Jute

Mills and

housing area

Railways

Water

Tank

a

d

b

KCC Shop

1972 1992 2004

Road widened;

shops converted to rentable

rooms as KCC

shops are erected in front

Katcha

house on platform;

low

marshy land by

riverside

Front road

developed; house built

with brick;

shop added on roadside

house front

Construction of an

additional storey using NGO loans;

needed for extra

income and status upgradation before

daughter’s

marriage

183

Examples in Figure 5.29 demonstrate how the various manipulations of house form

(and its spatial components) have continued to help the migrant dwellers to cope with

changing socio-economic-spatial conditions. Particularly the examples under

categories ‘b’ and ‘c’ highlight how some culturally ‘constant’ spatial elements had to

be compromised (and even modified) as a response to livelihood necessities, which

however has eventually facilitated incremental growth. In S1H1 for example, the

archetypical ‘rural vernacular form’ – i.e. ‘the hut with a verandah’ has been

completely transformed into a rather ‘hybrid form’ within a span of four decades.

Likewise, in the four cases under ‘c’ (S8H2, S10H1, S2H1 and S7H4), particularly

the ‘verandah’ had to give way to a house-front firewood shop, a master bed room,

the elder son’s bed room and a public water collection/bathing area respectively. As a

consequence of these spatial adjustments, a middle-class inspired hanging verandah

now appears on the upper floor in S1H1 (b - circled); likewise in S8H2 (c), again a

middle-class inspired ‘drawing room’ appears on the north-west corner of the house

(circled). In other examples of adjustments, as in S10H1 and S2H1, functions which

were once carried out in the verandah (cooking and living), now take place in the

courtyard and in the master sleeping area respectively (circled). These are all acts of

spatial negotiation and tradeoffs that migrants had to make for coping with essential

livelihood issues. Here, form and space have been used as the key instruments for

attaining it.

5.3.2.3 Income generation

Income-generation and employment can be viewed as the two main reasons why

home-based enterprises (HBE) are frequently found in Khulna’s low income migrant

settlements. Depending on the nature of enterprise, contribution from such works

ranges between 20% to almost the entire household’s income. Household members,

particularly the women (who are also illiterate and conservative), gets an opportunity

to stay at home, fulfil their domestic responsibilities and still earn some very

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important sums of money. In most cases, it is the female members of the family who

would run a little business and continue funding her ‘incremental’ house building

efforts using, now a days, one or a multiple of NGO loans. Although there has been

mixed reports about the usage of NGO loans62

, yet the ones who could productively

use this loan, for example to finance an ongoing business, tended to possess a ‘better

house’ made of brick and CI sheet. This however supplements an earlier assumption

that in-house income generation activities lead to better housing environments, e.g.

ownership of better quality houses63

(e.g. made of permanent materials).

Approximately in 10% all migrant households, some forms of in-house income

generating activities are to be found that contribute to household’s overall income.

Although in most cases it is quite hard to distinguish income-generating spaces from

living and other functional spaces, commonly it is around one-fifth to a half of the

house space that is used for some sort of income generation depending on the nature

of income generating activity performed (Figure 5.30). Higher percentage of income

generating space is normally associated with houses that have rentable rooms (Figure

5.37). Generally, these findings remain consistent for all ten settlements surveyed. In

addition to the economic return from renting of whatever small space available in the

dwelling unit, manufacturing of economically valuable products are commonly

observed. In many cases, manufacturing is reported as being more profitable than

renting. Often, both renting and non-renting activities (e.g. shop) are both found

within a single house. However, the occurrence of a particular sort of income

generation activity in settlements chiefly depends on the location of and the demands

62. In numerous cases, NGOs have either pushed or tricked women to borrow for starting a

business, where the women were clearly unwilling to borrow (for some does not like

borrowing while many did not have any ‘running business’). Although aware of the fact

that such a loan would not be used for businesses, NGO operators still lend these women

since the former’s ‘job description’ makes him/her to disburse as many loans as possible.

63. This substantiates the hypotheses mentioned in Tipple (1993: 530) and Mahmud (2003:

322). But again, this is too uncritical a claim; many inhabitants amongst the surveyed

settlements cling to home-based works because they simply cannot afford to find a work

185

that are created by these businesses or economic production functions. This has

already been seen, for example, in the discussions on settlement 1 and its surrounding

industrial and trading zones (Figure 5.6: right).

Income from renting may assume two forms; one, in which the landlord could be

living in the same dwelling unit or in a separate unit immediately alongside the

tenant’s unit (Figure 5.2: left and Figure 5.30: S8H2); and two, the landlord may be a

prior resident of the settlement but now an absentee who lives outside the settlement

particularly because of his/her improved economic status. In terms of tenants, they

could also be of two types generally. One, tenants are low-income individuals, who

elsewhere, and he/she does not possess any resources apart from the house that he/she can

use for income generation.

Figure 5.30: Households with various income generating activities, starting clockwise from

top left corner are: S3H1, S1H2, S1H4, S8H2, S7H1 and S6H3.

Shop/shop-related activities (e.g. storage)

Rented space

5 Handicraft (e.g. sewing)

Poultry/livestock

5 5

5 5

5

186

are either permanent migrants or circular/seasonal migrants. Their preference for

particular types of rentable space depends on their ‘migrancy’ status. It has been

found that most of the permanent ones are older, and live with their families (wife,

children and some with grandchildren) in the city since they do not have any asset

(land, house or livelihood) left in their rural place of origin. On the other hand, the

seasonal or circular migrants are younger individuals in their 20’s and 30’s (both

male and female). They do not have their families living with them because they are

generally single, and they have their families and some sort of asset back home. They

only move between their village home and the city to compensate for the lack of

income during ‘dull’ cropping seasons (e.g. when there is no job available in the rainy

season) or following a hazard (e.g. mega-cyclones, which occurs in every 2-3 years in

Khulna and severely affect its rural coastal hinterlands). These migrant groups often

look for small rentable rooms, as seen in the case of S1H1 tenants (Figure 5.37).

However, in both cases, it is mostly through the kinship network i.e. family members

and deshi manush that rentable houses and rooms are searched for. ‘To-let’ signs are

common in middle-class neighbourhoods in Khulna but not in these migrant

settlements. In case of the permanent migrants with families, they have tended to

settle down after 2 to 3 initial movements commonly during the first decade of their

stay in Khulna. They choose locations and units which suit them most, first socially

(e.g. deshi manush lives alongside) and then economically. On the other hand, for the

‘mobile’ types of migrants, and particularly for the newer ones, there are not many

spaces available in the older settlements. They tend to live, as a sublet (paying or non-

paying) with their city living relatives or friends or in the newer, and ‘low quality’

settlements in the peripheral locations. For the older ones of this category however,

who have established for themselves a pattern of visiting Khulna during certain times

in a year, some forms of accommodation are generally available. It may even be

187

reserved by the house-owner – in many cases the same deshi manush, whose house

this mobile-migrant is used to rent in the previous years.

In case of the institutional renters, it is usually the NGOs now a day, who would rent

a room for a particular duration in a day, or a full-time room, or a whole house for

purposes such as setting up a community school or a community clinic (Figure 5.35:

right). Generally, rent money is paid on a monthly basis, while the migrant

community members and their children remain the exclusive users of these facilities.

Similar facilities which are run by governments, however, are not to be found within

these settlements because by doing that government most likely fears it would

legitimize migrants’ illegal tenure status.

On the other hand, NGOs, who are government-approved formal sector organizations,

are not known for running similar facilities in the middle- or higher-class

Figure 5.31: Locations of primary school in settlement 1 (left); and community centre in

settlement 3 where income generating activities take place (right – with photo of embroidery

work being done inside). Noteworthy is the relative locations of respective community

leaders’ house in each case (house plans). Although both funded by NGOs and Donor

projects, it is only by these leaders’ approval one could use these otherwise public spaces for

personal income generation.

Primary

School

room

Community

centre cum

elementary

school

188

neighbourhoods in Khulna either. They act this way partly due to their foreign

donors’ budget-spending guidelines (for donors’ focus on ‘slum improvement’ etc.),

and partly because government officials (and their bureaucratic procedures) would

not like to be compared with them on the same grounds.

Among the non-renting income-generation sources, which consist generally of

various production activities64

, two types could be named in the way space is utilized

in each. One, production takes place using a ‘third space’, where the space is neither

part of the household nor owned by the migrant landlord. Such space may be part of a

public building, such as a room from a community building or verandah from a

community school (Figure 5.31). No rent is paid for using this space as well because

these buildings are not owned by any individual. Rather, access to this space and its

continued use is maintained by the ‘controlling power’ some particular persons hold

over the community65

. In the second form of income generation activities, generally

the migrant owner is engaged since it happens within the realm of his/her own house.

Often a room can be partially or flexibly used for these purposes (settlement 2).

Although rare, a whole upper floor may be constructed for production activities

(settlement 7). In particular occasions, the whole plot may be used for this purpose

(as in settlement 6) while the migrant owner living elsewhere. In addition, shops

either in the form of a ‘shop-house’ or as a detached unit located elsewhere in the

settlements are also two frequently occurring types (Figure 5.30).

5.3.2.4 Social gains (from renting)

In addition to the financial gain the migrant landlord enjoys from renting, there is also

a social gain that both landlord and renter enjoy. For example, in the case of the

64. This typically includes stitching and embroidery, raising poultry and livestock, tailoring,

food-items preparation, fish scaling, wood workshops, storages, and above all operating

shops, restaurants and stalls.

65. This person (e.g. the community leader/elite) has been further discussed in Section 5.4.

189

individual renters and their relation with the migrant landlord, both economic and

social gains are yielded. Although generalization is not possible, yet income from

renting remains a major source of earning for many of these migrant households.

Contribution ranges from 30% to 90% of entire household’s income depending on

plot size and hence how much space is available for renting. However, in large

‘illegal’ settlements (e.g. settlements 1 or 3) where plot size is smaller, income from

renting counts much below 30% of average household’s income. Interestingly, these

settlements are also home to the more ‘well-off’ compared with all the other studied

settlements because of their proximity to job locations (for settlement 1, shrimp and

settlement 3, proximity to Ghat) and hence having multiple earning members in most

of the households.

In contrast, in the smaller and more ‘legal’ settlements with a larger plot size

(particularly those at Khulna’s peripheral areas such as settlement 5) income from

renting may count from 50% to 90% of household’s overall income. Yet, it is not the

monetary return alone that remains the only gain from renting; there are associated

social gains for both landlord and tenant as well. This can be seen, for example, in

settlement 4, which consists of 10-15 rentable units within a total of 200+ households.

Within this settlement, it is generally maintained by the community elders that houses

could be rented to the deshi manush only. Initially, it seems very harsh and to some

extent, irrational. But a closer inspection reveals that this settlement’s very sustenance

depends on the strength of the community being ‘tight’ and ‘communal’. As

suggested in the settlement history, all migrants living in settlement 4 originate from

the greater district of Barishal. This homogeneity, further aided by their closed ‘rent

policy’ however has allowed this community to remain united particularly during

numerous eviction threats. The community leaders, who are also residents of this

community, realized through many struggles the importance of an absolute control

over the entire resident population. The construction of this socio-political

190

mechanism in some way seemed more beneficial compared to the financial outcome

from renting.

In the case of settlement 5, social benefit from renting occurs in a different way.

Although the tenants here are not necessarily from the same rural origin of the

landlord, their intermingling culminates into a ‘third space’ (Figure 5.37: left). A few

shared zones emerge, such as cooking, bathing, washing, toilets and children’s play

area within the single-storey house compound, where particularly the female

members engage in their everyday domestic activities and exchanges. Events of

dissent and loud quarrels amongst tenants are indeed frequent; this is also expected

because the numbers of tenant-households often surpass the number/quantity of

service points66

. Yet, on the following day, same interactions and exchanges start

taking place as usual, forgetting yesterday’s squabbles. Indeed a sense of solidarity

can be sensed here due to the homogeneous socio-economic status of the tenants. In

terms of social benefit, this ‘owner status’ also puts the ‘poor’ landlord often in the

position of a ‘master’. What spawns through the many informal exchanges67

culminates in a more ‘family-like’ bond between the two parties. This reveals of the

tenants’ similar social status with that of the landlord’s as well. In addition, this

landlord now assumes the guardianship of this few families’ social worlds. Therefore,

it is not uncommon that during national or local polls, campaigns aim to convince

more the landlords and less the tenants. This has also been highlighted under

settlement history in section 5.2.

66. For example, in S5H1, there are 4 families that occupy the household premise using a

single toilet, a single bathing area, and a single water collection point on a daily basis;

while in S5H2, 11 families share the similar number of facilities

67. Such as sharing of spaces, inter-borrowing and lending of money and other stuff (e.g.

cooking oil, rice etc.) and solely trust-based transactions (no written documents

maintained for any kind of financial transaction – e.g. for paying rent or borrowing).

191

In many cases, home-based enterprises in low income settlements have been

described as sites for exploitation

(as in Tipple 1993: 531) since mainstream

industries tend to subcontract works at a significantly lower rate while workers

remain unable to bargain for any additional benefit because of their ‘informal’ status.

Similar can be said of settlements 1 and 2, which are located adjacent to the main

shrimp-processing industrial zones in Khulna. Not only these settlements remain

home to the essential worker population for these industries and trading posts, a

variety of supporting works to these facilities, such as fish scaling, box making,

parking for rickshaw-vans etc. are also commonly carried out using the home-spaces

of these settlements. On a different note however, these settlements then can also be

viewed as ‘support settlements’ for the industries and trading activities. These

migrants and the sustainability of these settlements depend, to a large extent, on the

economic-political support that these industry owners offer them quite often. Political

supports by this elite class, particularly to neutralize eviction threats, or for financial

support during social events (marriage, death and medical treatment) therefore

establish these two parties as close allies. So in the global marketplace, when Khulna

Shrimp sells at a competitive price, the economic benefit must be viewed in light of

the roles these social relations play. Over the years, such relationships have also been

established between the migrant producers and other customers68

of their products

that also have helped the former to ‘soften’ their ‘illegal’ tenure status. Such

relationships thus also have earned migrants the essential external recognition of

these apparently ‘illegal’ settlements. This, the migrants feel, would lead to the

gradual replacement of the negative image usually associated with these settlements

(e.g. ‘places of crime and social ills’) by more positive attribute like ‘places of

production’.

68. These customers can be the subcontractors and suppliers for offices or industries, NGOs,

and people from neighbouring middle-class communities

192

5.3.3 Dynamics of territorial boundary

Figure 5.32 demonstrates the dynamic nature of the territorial boundary manifested in

the everyday spatial ‘negotiations’ at both household and public levels of the studied

settlements. In the instances of Figure 5.32 (above: a), a portion of the interior space

School cum

storage b c d

School

Work

Previous

Verandah Landlord’s

area

a

Figure 5.32: Negotiated territorial boundary: (above – a, b) time-based use of interior space in

Settlements 4 and 1; (above – c, d) multiple use of interior spatial organization due to changed

demographic circumstances at S2H1 and S1H1; (middle – left to right) house-neighbourhood

‘tissue’ showing time-based use of public territories at settlements 10, 3 and 4 respectively;

(bottom – left to right) photographs of the same public territories at settlements 10, 3 and 4.

a b c

Tea stall

seat

Shop

Tea

stall

Shop

Playground

Bath

193

of the community building is used particularly in the afternoon hours for embroidery

works carried out by female members of neighboring houses. The same space

however is used for an elementary school in the morning. In the example of S1H2

(above: b), a NGO-run elementary school runs in the morning while the same space is

used in the afternoons for fish basket storage. In (above: c and d), the original spatial

organization of house interiors have been adjusted according to changing family

needs. For S2H1 (above: c), verandah has been turned into elder son’s bedroom after

he got married, while cooking (circled), dining and living now take place within the

master sleeping area. In S1H1 (above: d), her personal bedroom (north-west corner)

is sacrificed by the widow landlord for accommodating the newly married daughter

and son-in-law; her new space is now used also as a living area, a space for running a

Saree business (upper circled) and for dressing (lower circle). Similar fluidity of

territorial practice may also be noticed in the public level examples (above: middle

and bottom). The playground in settlement 10 (middle and bottom: a) is also a sacred

place which is not to be encroached. Every year a number of religious gatherings take

place here. In settlement 3 (middle and bottom: b), household premise of S3H4 is

bifurcated by cross-movements of neighbours who do not have other access points to

their houses. So this apparently private property and its boundaries also have a public

dimension to them. The concept of boundary thus appears fluid and slippery once

again. Similar can be seen in the example of settlement 4 (middle and bottom: c),

where spaces around roadside shops and tea stalls are appropriated and used by the

community members during most parts in a day. Removable furniture is used to claim

territory, as shops continue to operate day-long.

These findings however substantiates Altman (1975: 160)’s theory that territoriality

is a complex process that changes with time and circumstance. While certain well-

defined territories may exist, their boundaries may be flexible and may shift and

evolve in response to changing situations (Ibid: 104). But as these examples

194

demonstrate the ‘scare’ circumstances (such as the lack of space or a lack of

accessibility), there are other social benefits that occur from these practices as well.

In the household level examples, the sacrificing of bedroom or verandah certainly

prioritizes the view that a ‘joined family’ must be retained at any cost. In addition to

this cultural preference for ‘joined family’, parting of the elder son would obviously

have caused financial hardships for both parents and the son. In the example of the

widow landlady, her daughter is the only child she has. So having no other earning

member and owing to another cultural preference69

, it is for her son-in-law and

daughter’s stay this woman was prepared to make any sort of sacrifice/compromise.

In the example of the playground in settlement 10, the need to retain the playground

in its original state (un-encroached) is both religious and political. Although such

religious gatherings a few times a year help spiritual fulfilment, organization of such

gatherings (where people from both neighbouring and distant communities are free to

take part) once again helps reduce the settlement’s ‘bad name’ as discussed with

other cases previously. Instead of being viewed as invaders, people living in

settlement 10 now thus gets an opportunity to be viewed by outsiders as ‘religious

community’ as well.

In the case of sacrificed territorial claim for public use as in settlement 3, the notion

of ownership becomes a negotiated concept in the interest of communal living. Even

if the plot boundary is clearly outlined and the landlord is free to construct any

building within the boundary70

, some vacant space around the middle of the plot is

still retained, allowing it to be used as entry to different households including

landlord’s own. For neighbours being well known to this particular landlord, this

loosening of territorial claim benefits ‘social surveillance of private property’ as well.

69. In Bangladeshi society, a widowed mother would typically reside with any of her elder

sons after her husband passes away. A woman is not preferred to live on her own in the

conservative Muslim family system.

70. Please take note of how structures are constructed on each of the edges of this plot.

195

In terms of settlement environment, home-based enterprises and particularly those

which encroach and make use of public spaces and streets (as in the example of

settlement 4) also offer a twofold contribution. First, the shops and stalls become

places of everyday encounter between community members. For having a pubic

nature, these apparently small establishments become important locations where

social behaviours are displayed and constantly being shaped (and mostly positively

modified). In addition, these establishments located at the thresholds of settlements

and Public Streets become sources of constant social surveillance. Both outgoing

(e.g. playing children without parents) and incoming activities (e.g. strangers to the

settlements) thus become subject to surveillance and scrutiny of the users of these

spaces. Since most of these shops and stalls operate all day long (and some even deep

into the night), someone is expected to be present always and play that vital role of a

‘social eye’.

5.4 Decision-making

This section discusses the actors, rules, territorial hierarchies and territorial depth –

pertaining to the spatial decision-making structure in these settlements.

5.4.1 Actors

Actors, or Agents as Habraken (1998: 7) puts them, are the individuals, groups or

institutions that inhabit the built environment, and have the ability to transform it by

making sure “things stay as they choose within the territory they claim”. “The goal”,

Habraken says hence “is not to observe how agents interact, but to understand the

structure and behaviour of the form that is the cause and goal of their interaction”

(Ibid: 30). So in light of the discussions on the history of settlement-tenure and

migrants’ territorial practices so far, Table 5.2 (overleaf) summarizes the identity of

actors who have remained influential and most essential during settling down and in

everyday acts of habitation.

196

Table 5.2: Settlements and influential actors involved.

Settlement

name

Influential Actors involved

Household level Settlement level Settlement 1

Landlord (for tenants), UPPRP

leaders, Community elders, CSS,

Shrimp-factory owners.

Mayor, Ward 22 Councillor, CSS,

UPPRP leaders, Shrimp-factory

owners.

Settlement 2

Landlord, NGOs, UPPRP

personnel.

Local traders and businessmen,

BNP Ward 22 office.

Settlement 3

UPPRP leaders, elders (Sardars)

in minority communities (e.g.

Harijan,Vaidya).

Mayor, Ward 21 Councillor,

Railways IW department, UPPRP

leaders.

Settlement 4

Sardar brothers, 3-4 other elders,

UPPRP leaders, internal political

workers.

Sardar brothers, Local MP, Ward

1 Councillor.

Settlement 5

Landlord (for tenants), UPPRP

personnel, NGOs.

KCC, UPPRP personnel (local

elites), NGOs, Landlord,

Religious bodies.

Settlement 6

4-5 community elders (originally

allotted and supporters of same

political party), NGOs.

Mayor, Ward 9 Councillor,

Central Minister for labour,

community elders (and supporters

of political parties).

Settlement 7

UPPRP leaders, Bihari

community elders, NGOs, Baitul

Falah Mosque Committee.

SPGRC, Ward 12 Councillor,

International Red Cross,

Khalishpur Housing Authority.

Settlement 8

Mr. Bakkar and his 3-4 affiliates. Khalishpur Housing Authority,

KCC, Mr. Bakkar and his 3-4

affiliates.

Settlement 9

Jute Mills labour leaders, political

leaders, Building Committees,

NGOs, KCC.

Mayor, Ward 10 Councillor,

Labour (and political) leaders,

Building Committee.

Settlement 10

Allotted employees, community

members, Railways IW

Department.

Railways IW department,

Community members.

As shown, a number of actors have been identified in Table 5.2. If compared with

Raharjo (2010: 23)’s mentioned categories, two variations can be particularly noted

of Khulna’s migrant settlements. First, actors do not have a fixed or discrete role

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pertaining to the physical development of settlements; often it is difficult to delineate

an exact role for each. For example, in many cases in Khulna, Raharjo’s mentioned

provider and operator appear to be the same person (e.g. the landlord). Likewise, the

supplier may often be a Deshi Manush, who would play the role of the middle man

for free – not for a fee; the associated social gain that have been discussed earlier

often remains the only remuneration. The regulator, or concerned government offices

such as KDA, as seen earlier, may often play the exact opposite role; some offices

(NHA, Land Revenue Office) may even extend its support for a fee (illegal) that it is

not supposed to receive. In addition, when these organizations are lobbied by

politicians and tenants, the former’s role become similar to that of the suppliers. The

role of the facilitators (UNDP, UPPRP, NGOs), on the other hand, is often that of the

negotiator. In addition to supporting the socio-spatial development activities in the

migrant settlements, often also involve in negotiation between the illegal tenants and

concerned government offices.

Second, a presence of a new category of actors can also be noted in the context of

Khulna’s migrant settlements. In addition to the seven types suggested by Raharjo, a

new eight category can be suggested. This can be given a more ‘fitting’ name

‘negotiators’, considering the roles of all the influential actors who for social,

economic and political reasons have continued to support, solicit and negotiate issues

for the migrants in numerous occasions. This category however should include all the

actors – both formal and informal, who have proved most essential for migrant

settlements’ sustenance so far. In that KCC, UPPRP (personnel), political figures and

influential businessmen may all be viewed as negotiators.

5.4.2 Rules

Rules determine how (physical) parts are admitted or excluded from territorial space

(Altman 1975: 127). Rules are manifested in the customary practices of

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territorialization, socially accepted norms and in the legal (formal) deeds. These are

all used to ensure actors’ desired level of control over the spatio-physical boundaries

(Ibid: 128). Local enforcements, whether formal or informal, help establish (the

acceptable) territorial depth within the broader urban fabric (Ibid: 145). In the

particular context of the ‘informal’ migrant settlements, which commonly suffer from

an acute lack of physical space and legality, rules are manifested in alternative

practices, norms and enforcements pertaining to many territorial control mechanisms.

Chief amongst these practices remain a number of permanent and non-permanent

building activities.

Without secured tenure, formal deeds either for ownership transfer (e.g. through

possession rights selling) or for other types of transaction (e.g. rent payment or

borrowing/lending), are almost non-existent in the context of migrant settlements.

Across all the studied settlements (including the Bihari settlement 7), a common

practice prevails. This practice, which is based on primarily on trust – gives high

importance on the immediate community’s involvement in any sort of transaction

Figure 5.33: (Left) S8H2 plan; (middle) S8H2 photo shows how it maintains distance (set

back) from adjacent sewer drain and street; (right) Bakkar Bastee front – again showing its

maintained set back from the Public street.

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between parties involved. For example, in the case of ‘possession right transfer’

between an ‘owner’ and a buyer, the community elders and the neighbours who share

this property boundary are asked by the present ‘owner’ to witness the transaction and

show the plot boundaries to this newcomer. Although the seller, the buyer and the

witnesses jointly sign a paper to keep record of the transaction, the document remains

worthless because of the ‘illegal’ tenure status of this plot/dwelling unit. Rather, what

remains most important is the mutual trust between the parties involved emerging

primarily from the fact that these parties all share the same kinship network. In most

cases, this newcomer would be a known person to the seller – may be a relative, or a

friend or his/her deshi manush. Either way, a potential buyer needs to be ‘known’ to

the seller before the actual selling of the possession rights. In many instances, the

seller would in fact mention (and positively certify) about this buyer to his/her

neighbours and community elders prior to actually transferring the rights.

Encroachments of public land and housing areas have been the prevalent way of

territorialization for 8 out of the 10 studied settlements. However, these acts of

encroachment also come with a principle. Common to all these settlements is a

certain form of respect for government ‘boundaries’ where the encroaching migrant

makes sure that no permanent building/construction activity ‘spills over’ to the

adjacent public domains (Figure 5.33). It is done precisely to convey that although

their existence is solely dependent on the invasion of public property, such illegal

means are sought after only to the extent it is required for provisioning a mere shelter

for themselves, and are in no way at the cost of greater public life. When such

invasions of public infrastructure actually take place, non-permanent materials

(bamboo, wood etc.) are commonly used (Figure 5.34: left and right) – demonstrating

once again that it is done solely to compensate for the lack of house space, and not

intended to permanently infringe any of the public infrastructure.

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At the household-neighbourhood level, when there is a need to erect a new house or

carry out major modifications to the existing house, the neighbours would always be

notified. In many cases, depending on the nature of construction, community elders

would be called upon to give their verdict on the actual threshold of construction (plot

outline and limits to vertical extension) which the owner might take advantage of (as

in S1H1, Figure 5.34: middle).

For public use (and also for own social and financial gain), migrant dwellers might

often allow structures to be added on to their own buildings or allow modifications to

their own house form (Figure 5.35). However, in many cases (as in S7H4), this

process of giving away such precious little space for public purpose remains complex.

Local enforcements such as constant lobbying, convincing and even exertion of social

pressure by community elders are common. These acts of construction hence

manifest as socially determined practices in the presence of a clear leadership. There

are also certain spatial practices in the migrant settlements, which have become

Figure 5.34: Rules and norms of construction: (Left) addition of a non-permanent portion

with the otherwise brick-built house S1H1; ground level – cover on public sewerage drain to

make way for ground-level tenants’ entry; this space behind the street-front shops is also used

for cooking and bathing; (middle) 2004 construction of new brick-built house and verandah

extension over street (marked); this projection over the road was approved by the elders for

allowing the female owner (also one of the oldest residents on this lane) a clear view of the

settlement entry from the main road; (right) S1H1 photo with non-permanent add-ons.

Water collection

and bathing

point for Ranga

Miah Goli

Drain cover

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accepted social norms. First are the events of compromised privacy for dealing with

household’s lack of space – already outlined in the discussions of home-based

enterprises in section 5.3. However, as in the cases of Figure 5.34 (middle and right)

for example, similar compromises also bring about further social gains equally for the

community and the landlord. The landlord’s reputation as a ‘sacrificing leader’ is

enhanced. The house now becomes a ‘landmark’ – having a heightened identity

amongst the settlement. Relation between the different parties (such as between the

landlord and the concerned NGOs who generally fund such projects) is also

strengthened. Second, in most settlement streets, architectural ‘surveillance elements’

are frequently found, which ensure both privacy and safety of neighbourhood spaces.

For example, the cantilevered verandah in Figure 5.34 equally keeps ‘an eye’ on the

entry to the lane, on the lane space itself and also on the bathing space (which is also

very close to the main road and where a number of female also take their bath). Even

if the female landlord is not present there, the presence of the verandah itself

discourages the potential intruder. NGO-funded and community-managed bathing

and water collection spaces of this sort are however plenty amongst all of the

settlements studied (Figure 5.36).

Figure 5.35: (Left) community water collection point and bath added on to S4H4 building

wall; (middle) community water collection point and bath replaces front verandah of house

S7H4; (right) elementary school erected within the household premise of S1H2.

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In addition to the architectural elements as the verandah which helps ensure privacy

of the spaces where mostly the female members congregate during particular times in

a day, most male members are also aware of those and generally avoid these times for

their own use. Similar mutual respect is also evident in the frequent events of

‘thoroughfare’, as people living in backward properties (whose house does not have

an approach road) frequently make use of front-owner’s property to enter or exit

theirs (Figure 5.36: right). It is a more negotiated spatial activity and also a customary

spatial behaviour that can be traced back to the rural practices where immediate

neighbours and kin are often allowed to do the similar. The neighbours’ crossing-over

of front-owner’s property line is not considered trespassing as long as latter’s privacy

is respected.

5.4.3 Territorial hierarchy

Actors who inhibit a particular territory maintain the right to control the movements

in and out of that territory, even that of the actual landlord as in a landlord-tenant

situation (Habraken 1998: 136). “Agents controlling higher levels dominate agents

controlling lower levels. When higher-level agents control what goes into included

territories, included agents must, as a rule, accept the imposed limitations on what

filters through the higher level” (Ibid: 139). Although many instances in support of

Figure 5.36: (Above – starting clockwise from left)

locations of bathing points in settlements 3, 4, 1, 9 and 7;

(right) thoroughfare over another’s property in S3H4

premise – grey outline shows property boundary and red

lines show neighbour’s path across S3H4 territory.

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this premise are on hand, alternative practices are worth mentioning as well in the

context of Khulna’s migrant settlements. In the examples of Figure 5.37, there are

certain ‘negotiated territories’ (area 3), which are hard to designate as a clearly

controlled zone either by the landlord or by the tenants. Although the service areas

(yard, kitchen, toilets, washing, bathing etc.) are generally under the landlord’s

control, the landlord in many cases shares these facilities with his/her tenants for both

social and economic gains (discussed under section 5.3).

The extent of sharing varies depending on the size of land-plots and settlements. In

the cases of S5H1 and S6H4, these shared territories are more elaborated and

comprise of a higher number of functions. Due to the horizontal distribution of all the

territories, interactions between the landlord and his/her tenants are more frequent. In

S1H1, due to the compact nature of the land-plot (and settlement) and for the vertical

separation of territories (between landlord and tenant), only the toilet is shared

between the landlord and her two female tenants (the male tenant is not allowed to

use the ground-level toilet). The frequency of interaction therefore is also lower

compared to that of the S1H1.

Figure 5.37: Showing (from left to right) house plans for S5H1, S6H4 and S1H1; landlord’s

territory, tenants’ territory and negotiated territory (shared service areas) are marked with

numbers 1, 2 and 3 respectively; for S1H1, there is an upper floor where the landlord lives.

3

1

2

1

2

2

3

2

3

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At the level of settlements, territorial hierarchy depends on the nature of

leadership/headship prevailing in each of these settlements. As in settlement 4 and 8,

or in Vaidya Para71

in settlement 3, territories are controlled by community elite (an

individual leader or a group of individuals) who possess the decision-making power

regarding any socio-spatial issues of the settlement. As discussed in the settlement

history section, this person in most cases is the ‘undeclared’ community leader – an

elder (settlement 8) or traditional leader (Vaidya Para in settlement 3), or someone

with better income sources (e.g. multiple earning members in the family), a tested

leader who previously have fought for community’s well being (settlement 4), or

someone who has a good political connection outside the settlement (settlement 4).

For these communities being ‘closed’ and settlements being smaller, interpersonal

relations remain stronger. If a house has to be modified or rebuilt in any of these

settlements, it would require approval of the respective leadership. It is by his

approval, anyone (in or outside the family) can continue to use any space for

economic production (as in Figure 5.31). Any NGO intervention at the community

level would also require this person’s prior approval. However, in the larger

settlements (e.g. settlement 1) no such clear individualist control of territories has

been observed. Although community elders are present and remain an important part

of the socio-spatial decision-making body, the territorial ‘control mechanism’

remains rather negotiated and consensual. This is elaborated in the following section.

5.4.4 Decision-making structure

In the smaller of the studied settlements, the community elites (leaders) clearly enjoy

the possession of a much larger property compared with other migrant residents

(Figure 5.38: above). In most cases, such larger parcels of land have been in

71. Vaidya is a traditional river-faring snake charmer nomad group, known for their magic-

healing capabilities particularly in the rural areas of Bangladesh. However, with time, this

particular group has become sedentary and has been living on the western periphery of

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possession of these leaders ever since they have started inhabiting these settlements.

Their supremacy is demonstrated by the unchallenged possession of their quite

unusually large share of land within these land-scarce settlements.

This spatial supremacy further validates these leaders’ socio-political superiority over

the rest, and hence on the community’s decision-making structure as a whole (Figure

5.39: right). This makes the decision-making structure authoritative, linear, and

clearly hierarchical. The community leader here assumes all the responsibility of

settlement 3. As in many other traditional societies, each Vaidya group is headed by a

Figure 5.38: (Above) floor areas of four houses compared in settlement 4; one with bold blue

outline belongs to one of the community elites (Sardar Brothers), while the ordinary ones

being outlined in red; (middle-left) portions of Vaidya Para in settlement 3 - Sardar’s house

compared with the neighbors’; (middle-right) Mr. Bakkar’s house area compared with the

adjacent ones.

206

making decisions (particularly regarding most physical transformations) at all three

levels of the settlement, which he deems best for the community and also for

retaining his socio-economic position. On the other hand, in the larger settlements,

the decision-making structure is more bottom up, complex and less stratified (Figure

5.39: left). The working of numerous NGOs and the operation of UNDP-led UPPRP

now a day led to the formation of many grassroots cooperative. They have also been

promoting bottom up processes, where one of their key objectives remains the

promotion of female leadership. The idea here has been to empower women in the

context of a rather traditional culture where neither female leadership nor female-

headed family structure occurs naturally. It is therefore, these women’s role in

community decision-making process (such as erection of bathing/toilet area,

construction/repair of roads and drains etc.) can be viewed as an attempt to create an

alternative agency for control in an otherwise male chauvinist society.

leader (Sardar), whose verdict on any socio-spatial issue is deemed final.

Figure 5.39:

(Left) complex

decision-making

structure of larger

migrant

settlements;

(right) linear and

simple (and more

traditional)

decision-making

structure of the

smaller

settlements.

207

Indeed, this ‘bottom-up’ process involves some sort of ‘local’ leadership from within

the community particularly regarding building construction. This same leadership is

also capable of mobilizing the mass of the population for example, if a need arises for

resisting eviction threats. Yet, none of these two decision-making structures involves

a clear bottom up process. For example, the present female leadership structure in t

these settlements is often challenged by their male counterparts (in many cases the

male members of their family). In addition, this idea of a female leadership is after all

an ‘imposed idea’ – something which had been conceived by people and

organizations often divorced from the everyday socio-spatial realities of the low

income migrant settlements. Thus the ‘true’ nature and extent of ‘bottom up’ – both

in terms of problem identification and decision-making process pertaining to the

concerned community, remains questionable. So as Habraken (1998: 214) mentions

of two clear decision-making processes (i.e. top-down and bottom-up) underlying the

transformation of built environments, it is either a community-defined top down

process or a combination of top-down and bottom-up that can be identified in

Khulna’s migrant settlements. Settlement forms thus may be viewed as an outcome

of this permutation between two processes. Here different actors get involved in

taking decisions at different levels and about different components of the built

environment, and yet retain connections between them. This has been depicted in

Figure 5.39. In both cases however, problems and solutions are found to be

community-defined and community-driven respectively, while a community elite

(nowadays mostly represented by the female leadership of UPPRP) often leading

such initiatives. This nevertheless substantiates Habraken (Ibid: 227)’s assertion that

even if individual actors might exercise individual preferences, their acts typically

conform to a “socially determined” framework.

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5.5 Summary: threads of themes

Analysis of the fieldwork data, as presented in the previous sections identifies a

number of interesting threads. These are briefly summarized in Table 5.3 below.

These themes and threads, together with the ‘structural’ findings in Chapter 4 are

carried forward to Chapter 6.

Table 5.3: Threads of themes from data analysis on migrants’ spatial practices

Areas Theme/threads Problems with

categorization

- Boundaries between contradictory co-existences such as legal-illegal

or formal-informal remain problematic. It is quite tricky and risky to

clearly distinguish between such binaries and hence categorize them

in absolute terms of ‘legal’ or ‘illegal’.

- These ‘in-between’ situations in most occasions are created and

maintained by authorities in power. Even if some form of legality or

formality is approved and allowed by these authorities, not all the

issues pertaining to legality have been resolved; chief amongst these

remains the issue of land tenure and hence the issue of building

construction.

- Settlement process of the migrants then can historically be looked at

as a distinctive ‘mechanism’ where room for bargain, negotiation and

compromises are intentionally maintained. These settlements and their

very existence thus can also be viewed as ‘negotiated’.

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Spatial

occupation and

personalization

- At the household level, spatial boundaries remain flexible and

slippery; primary territories are maintained but can also be given up or

compromised depending on social or economic circumstances.

- At the public level, meaning of space and spatial boundaries shifts and

changes constantly. This largely depends on the social negotiations

that are made between the migrant dwellers. At this level, a number of

non-dwelling functions are used by migrants toward fulfilling a

number of ‘political’ objectives. Both religious and non-religious

buildings remain important physical components that help improve

settlement image by establishing and maintaining social relations with

people external to these settlements.

- Although the dwelling environment remains generally hidden, spatial

interfaces between migrant settlements and the outside world remain

places of interaction between migrant dwellers and other citizen. This

also helps migrant communities and settlements to soften their ‘bad

names’ by promoting their positive image as ‘places of production’

and ‘places of religious population’.

Need for

territorialization

- A number of cultural factors affect the way in which migrants go

about their everyday territorial practices. This particular sort of

practice also facilitates incremental growth and creates provision for

various income generation activities. Both incremental growth and

income generation however require a significant compromise with the

culturally ‘desired’ spatial environment. Despite incremental growth

and home-based enterprises’ significant contribution to the ‘crowding’

of settlements, there are associated social gains that also result from

this particular form of territorial practice.

Dynamics of

territorial

boundary

- Territorial boundaries cannot be clearly defined and they remain

subject to constant change and interpretation by the migrant dwellers.

In many cases, multiple use of a single space by a multiple of actors is

frequent. In response to changing demography and/or socio-economic

conditions – boundaries of both private and public space thus assume

different forms and shapes. This adjustment of boundaries however

leads to the adjustment of spatio-physical configurations as well. So

the dynamic and accommodative nature of spatio-physical

configurations of migrant settlements could again be viewed as

negotiated forms which are produced in response to changing socio-

economic situations.

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Decision-

making

- A number of influential elitist actors are identified who prove to be

important for the sustenance of migrant settlements. Such actors are

both formal and informal, and are both insiders and externals.

- There remain less formal (written) rules but more norms and

customary practices that act as rules as far as the spatial environment

of these settlements are concerned. For property (possession) transfer,

building, construction and modification (and even for renting in some

of the settlements) – communities abide by these unwritten rules that

impart order to these settlements socio-physical structure.

- There remain two particular models for decision-making; the

configurations of these models however depend on the size of the

settlement and demographic composition in it. These models are

neither top-down nor bottom-up. Rather, it is community-driven and a

combination of these two work together. In many cases, decision-

making is further facilitated by kinship networks and the presence of

deshi manush.

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Chapter 6: Scarcity, control and negotiations

6.1 Introduction

With the emergence of the politically ‘constructed’ socio-economic deficiencies and

socio-spatial binaries as in chapters 4 and 5 (e.g. formal-informal, permanent-

temporary and legal-illegal), understanding migrants’ home-making raises the

necessity of the formulation of a comprehensive framework; it also holds that it must

be formulated in consideration of these constructed conditions. Assuming migrant

habitats in the third world city as socio-physical outcomes of the workings of the

aforesaid binaries, this chapter outlines a framework that aims to comprehend the key

socio-spatial-political mechanisms underlying migrants’ home-making. For that, it

makes use of the threads of themes from Chapters 4 and 5. It holds that the proposed

conceptual framework (Control and social construction of home) is acontextual and

the addition of the concept of ‘Scarcity’ imparts a better contextualization capability

to this framework. An assessment of Home (as a social construct) in relation with the

socio-political, economic and spatial responses that Scarcity elicits also establishes

the Home-Scarcity relation more meaningfully.

This chapter begins with a brief discussion on scarcity. Scarcity is discussed as a

constructed circumstance rather than a real condition that have been apparent in the

works of different (levels of) authoritative regimes. This is followed by discussions

on how the scarce (binary) conditions have been used by the migrants for sustaining

their present tenure status in Khulna. The next section highlights a number of socio-

political-spatial mechanisms and their physical outcomes as found in Khulna’s

migrant settlements. The following section argues that scarcity – a constructed

condition under modernity, may also be seen culminating into an environment where

this imaginary condition finds an alternative expression and hence is compensated by

everyday acts of negotiation over territorial control mechanisms. It also proposes that

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the ‘scarcity-control-negotiation’ framework may be used to comprehend the spatio-

physical transformation processes of these settlements during a period which to a

large extent embodies the modern. Finally, it is argued that the ‘social construction of

home’ becomes meaningful only when it’s spatial thresholds and migrant peoples’

many acts of negotiation are viewed in relation with the wider socio-political

circumstances (e.g. scarcity) associated with Khulna’s migrant settlements. The last

section, which is also the last of this dissertation, underscores a few areas that I

believe would advance the present deliberations.

6.2 Three workings of scarcity

Scarcity, a condition opposed to abundance (having), and synonymous with ‘a sense

of lacking’ provides a useful perspective on how binary co-existences are constructed

and reconstructed by various actors in the shaping of urban form. Scarcity can hence

be seen as a means to fulfilling political objectives (e.g. control) which the

authoritarian regimes construct through the creation of imbalance of systems or

through the uneven distribution of human and non-human resources. Under

modernity, scarcity is a constructed condition rather a mere period of dearth (Xenos

1989: Introduction). Scarce conditions are created through uneven distribution of

resources or by denying specific population groups or settlements from accessing

certain resources to serve eventually the interest of many – prominent among which is

the interest of the market. The idea of scarcity then can be used to understand how in

a third world city, resource allocation (e.g. housing, land) and resource accessibility

are enabled through the systematic construction of binary opposites1. Material

manifestation of these binaries – both at the levels of larger settlements and at the

dwelling units unveil these environments as physical sites of socio-political interplays

1. Similar can be found in Roy (2004)’s discussion of the ‘choreographed creation’ of urban

informality or Chatterjee (2004)’s concept of the ‘political society’ in the context of

Kolkata.

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between the ordinary migrant and authoritative actors – both seeking legitimacy in

the context of scarcity.

Here it is argued that the idea of scarcity is found operating in three different ways in

migrants’ home-making process. First, scarcity is used as an authoritative construct in

socio-politics. A review of land-related administrative policies in Bangladesh reveals

how these have had grave consequences for its agrarian socio-spatial structure,

displacing populations, forming socio-spatial inequalities, and resulting in major

urban spatial transformations (this has been discussed in Chapter 4 and in Hakim and

Lim 2013). Second, scarcity is used as a ‘validating tool’ by both migrants and

external elitist actors (e.g. political leaders, formal private sector, NGOs etc.). As the

authorities remain in control of the allocation of scarce resources (e.g. land and

housing services), the migrants tend to exploit the conditions of scarcity to negotiate

with authorities for space and infrastructure while legitimizing the role of the latter.

Third, the acute scarceness of space and resources are compensated by a range of

socio-spatial practices. Space-making by various negotiations of socio-spatial

boundaries (e.g. obscuring public-private delineation or adapting to domestic

practices for economic gain) have become customary in the particular reality of

Khulna’s migrant settlements. These practices, as found, are all based on flexibility,

adjustments and manipulations of the available and the affordable, and in no way

conform to the ‘standard’ or to the ‘formal’.

6.2.1 Scarcity as a ‘constructed condition’

Scarcity has essentially remained a constructed condition; this has been evident

during the tenure of all ruling regimes irrespective of them being foreign or domestic.

Manipulation of various forms of scarcity has been obvious for all ‘modern’ ruling

regimes (and elitist actors during each of their tenures) starting from the early

colonization of Bengal. The ruling elite class ranging from the higher level central

214

governments down to that of the village Jotedar have often attempted to control this

section of the ordinary population to earn themselves legitimacy. So in the context of

this agrarian society, this comes as no surprise that it is the distribution of land and its

accessibility above all, which were systematically exploited to control populations

(and economy) in both rural and urban areas. This, for example, is what has been seen

in EIC’s profit-oriented manipulation of land policies that had immediately turned

thousands of peasants into landless sharecroppers on their own lands, and made them

alter their cropping/production pattern to benefit EIC’s trades. Similar was evident

during the British Raj, when, through some derogatory land use ‘planning’, divided

cities were purposely created while leaving the most of ‘ordinary’ population outside

the ‘sanitized zone’. With an intension to conveying the supremacy of the ruling

class, this exclusion left this main mass of Khulna’s population outside the

classification of a citizenry.

Narratives on the post-decolonization period also reveal of the ethno-geographical

discriminations between the Eastern and Western parts of the same idealist Muslim

state of Pakistan. Imbalances were again created and retained through the harnessing

of geo-demographic advantages of the East yet leaving it to suffer severely from an

inequitable distribution of resources. At the level of the city, modern mechanisms of

control, such as town planning was adapted, often at the cost of uprooting indigenous

populations to make way for the politically and economically ‘fitting’ housing

schemes targeting particular population groups. Industrialization in this period, whose

success was designed and dependent on the availability of low cost migrant labour

was promoted by authorities without promoting the livelihoods needs (including

housing) of this working class. During SAP (market liberalization), unprecedented

urbanization took place owing primarily to SAP’s impact on rural agriculture and

mass exodus from rural areas. Yet, neither governments nor other formal-sector

actors did provide any housing for these ex-peasants in the city. Again, the very

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system that had created an initial imbalance by upsetting the rural agrarian socio-

economic structure has been found acting inconsistently in the city by not being able

to solve the problem of housing for the ordinary migrants.

These instances hence refer back to the etymological root of ‘scarcity’ – in the French

word escarsete, meaning insufficiency of supply (Bronfenbrenner 1962: 265). This

insufficiency of supply, one realizes, also forms the base-work for present day market

economy and drives our ‘growth-oriented’ society. These also conform that scarcities

are eventually produced and upheld by capitalism as stimulants to consumption by

creating a rather ‘false’ sense of need or desire. Examples particularly from post-

liberation period in Bangladesh justify this hypothesis. It is the “restlessness of

capital” that continually shifts to exploit new opportunities, and with this manipulates

scarcities (Till 2011: 4). Governments, as caretakers of modern-day nation-states

exist to play the arbiter’s role to establish a system of rules and manage the scarce

resources for its entire citizenry (Bronfenbrenner 1962: 265). Yet, the regulatory

frameworks from government’s part (e.g. urban planning) aims to control and limit

activities without taking into account the “interconnectivity of limits which, when

accumulated, tend to shut down opportunity” (Till 2011: 8). In undivided Bengal and

in Bangladesh for example, there was surplus of land. But their distribution and

accessibility was highly selective and characterized by complex ownership and

control mechanisms. Scarcity thus manifested itself as a deliberate construction of

‘power and meaning’. As analyzed, it can now be viewed more as an outcome of

political objectives by all the authoritarian regimes by creating imbalance of systems

or by unevenly distributing human and non-human resources.

In terms of modernity, and under ‘modernity-consumerism’ dyad, scarcity hence

appears as a constructed condition rather a mere period of dearth (as in Xenos 1989:

Introduction). In case of Bengal, scarcity was created by denying specific groups of

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people or settlements from accessing certain resources to serve the interest of the

market (e.g. trades by EIC). As far as the prior evidences under ‘modern’ conditions

are concerned, scarcity did not occur naturally. Scarcity was often manifested as an

outcome of exclusion and unequal power relations in a society that legitimized

asymmetrical access to, and control over, finite and limited resources (here land).

6.2.2 Scarcity as a ‘political tool’ for validation

In an agrarian context as in Bangladesh, it is only natural that scarcity of land would

ultimately be used as a political tool for people who seek to control the agrarian

masses, and thus retain power at their disposal (Harris 1989). In addition to its value

as a scarce natural resource, land is also an essential component of economic

production, a base-work for anchorage and home-making, and also an ever-shifting

physical entity constantly shaped by the deltaic river-system. Land therefore has

always been an elusive cultural component in rural Bangladeshi society, and has

continued to do so even in the present urban context. Despite very few permanent

migrants could actually manage a piece of land while settling down in Khulna,

getting access to the currently possessed land and housing – in whatever temporary

form they may be, have been the outcomes of a constant persuasion process with, and

loyalty to certain influential individuals. These individuals, one way or another, have

remained very important for the migrant’s everyday livelihood activities (Hakim

2012). And when land/housing was meant to be delivered by government agencies, it

has always required the bargaining and the mediation of ‘powerful’ actors – a

political figure, a rich businessman, a government official, a religious institution or in

the recent days, a number of NGOs and UNDP-led projects. This is exactly what has

been found in the case of the migrant settlements (Chapter 5).

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6.2.2.1 The ‘politics of in-between-ness’

As a continuum to the prior moments of land scarcity and the eventual uprooting of

the rural peasant, possibility of post-migration land ownership for them in the city

became even more impracticable. Land scarcity has been the result of it being

curtailed and hoarded by the public agencies2 and the gentry to manipulate land price

for profit3. No loan is made available for the urban poor for land purchasing or house

building – neither from government banks nor from NGOs. Although more than

16,000 NGOs have been operating in Bangladesh in sectors allied to housing4, the

immediate return from the involvement with socio economic issues of the slums

prompt these NGOs to set a low priority on housing issues. NGOs also look for a

safer return from their investments, which the landless migrant does not guarantee.

So, as early as in 1997, 97% of the Bangladeshi urban poor did not own any land, as

private developers were serving exclusively the upper and middle classes (WB 2007:

35). Government agencies like KDA has also acted like a private developer,

developing fringe lands for profit and selling them to middle and higher class buyers.

A review of nine ‘completed housing projects’ (KDA 2007), shows that at least six

amongst these are currently the most expensive plots of land in Khulna. The

remaining three identified as “for low income residential areas” (KDA 2012), are in

fact 150m2 land-plots for the lower-middle income groups in Khulna – not the lowest.

2. Public agencies continue to occupy large quantities of underutilized land (approximately

10% in Khulna City; Bangladesh Railways for example, owns 2km2 of unutilized land).

Similar is seen in Dhaka, where “the real scarcity (of land) is compounded by an artificial

scarcity stemming primarily from the lack of utilization of public land within the city”

(WB 2007: 38).

3. Bangladesh is amongst the most densely populated nation in the world (1125person/km2)

(CIA 2012). Yet land-grabbing elites illegally hold 1.3million hectares of government-

owned khas land, ignoring the official maximum allowable slab (Islam 2010).

4. Rahman (2002: 435) informs of the NGOs working in Dhaka slums that apart from their

involvement in poverty reduction, education, health, family planning and gender issues,

their works in housing has remained limited to infrastructure and utility provisioning.

Recently, BRAC is putting in efforts to create a housing fund for assisting Dhaka’s

female industrial workers by building dormitories, and acting as intermediaries between

female tenants and private slum landlords (WB 2007: 46).

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Land-plot distribution and dissemination of ongoing structural plans still privilege the

rich who indulge in speculative markets5.

The ‘near-absence of formal agencies’ in public infrastructure provisioning is also

glaring; a failure to realize local socio-political-economic realities becomes evident in

Khulna’s 1961 Master Plan. Whilst large portions of land were zoned for industry and

housing, the British planner ignored cultural tradition, affordability and the nature of

housing required for industrial workers. This left little choice for migrants except to

settle in areas between these industries, in violation of the Master Plan intentions

(Chaudhury undated: 5). None of the nationalized jute industries in Khulna were

designed to provide adequate accommodation for its migrant workers either; not even

during their prosperous years6. Studies on three oldest and largest nationalized jute

mills in Khulna show that housing was available only to less than 10% of the entire

jute mills workers (Shahed 2006: 31, 33, 35); of these 10% however, most relied on

their ‘deshi manush’ or political connections (with labour leaders or petty leaders of

political parties) to gain access to housing (Hakim 2012). In the later industrial

developments like the private-sector shrimp industries that fuelled Khulna’s economy

since 1990s, still no workers’ accommodation or housing subsidy was provided for.

Squatting on Khas land thus has continued to produce rhizomic growth within the

formal ‘grid’. Tenanted shelters of varying size and configurations adjacent to these

industries has become the only recourse for (re)making home. When government

officials were to be involved in the settlement process, ‘bribing to maintain stay’ was

frequent (Settlements 4, 8, and 10). Even for those with formal recognition

(Settlements 3, 5, 6), political patronage is still required; local-level politicians, from

5. Ghafur (2010) similarly shows how Dhaka’s planning and development agency (RAJUK)

has formed a syndicate with land developers, politicians and the affluent higher middle

class.

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both ruling and opposition parties, are persistently lobbied by migrant-tenants. These

politicians assure the migrants by visiting settlements regularly and taking care of

their immediate needs (e.g. repair roads and construct public baths). Yet even in cases

where disputes about land ownership appear resoluble, the process is intentionally

lingered and delayed by the same politicians and influential personnel irrespective of

their political affiliation. As in settlement 6 - the government-provided low income

site and service project originally allotted to the homeless migrants of Khulna in mid

1970s, formalization of title has still been deliberately kept unresolved for almost four

decades now. It was only the ‘Land Allotment Slip’ (Figure 6.1: left) that was issued

to migrants for 45m2 plots in 1977 instead of a formal title deed (or ‘Dalil’ in

Bangla). Although entitled for such a Dalil by Government decree, the holders of

these land allotment slips (i.e. the actual owners) are still kept in a state of dilemma

with a tenure status that is at once formal and informal.

This situation is further compounded by the contradictory ‘acts of recognition’ by

various public sector organizations. While migrants without a Dalil continue remain

outside the tax roll of central government’s land revenue office, Khulna City

Corporation (KCC), i.e. the Mayor’s office continue to put holding numbers on each

of these ‘illegal’ dwelling units and collect holding tax from their owners. Lobbying

6. Between early- to mid-1970s, Jute export contributed around 80% to national export

revenue (Rahman and Khaled 2011: 2).

Figure 6.1: (Left) typical ‘Land Allotment Slip’ for Vastuhara; (middle and right) brick-built

house with wooden floor and CI sheet roof.

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and political pressure from reigning Mayors7, Ward Councillors and party cadres on

other central government offices (e.g. postal, electricity and water supply services)

also ensures that these essential services are extended to these illegal settlements,

which would otherwise have not been possible8.

The creation of uncertainty though such ‘quasi recognition’ of the migrant

populations, however, gives Mayor and Ward Councillors crucial political

imperatives. For them, partial legalization of Khulna’s 1million population living in

its 5080 settlements9 would improve the latter’s confidence in them and ensure

obedience. Provisioning of land, although unsecured, still provides the essential

anchorage-element for home-making and augments migrant’s reliance on the political

machinery as the provider. Thus, as observed so far, the initial formation of 9 out of

the 10 settlements have occurred through the direct patronization of political actors

and their associates (e.g. businessmen or labour leaders). Migrant population in these

settlements residing even for 4 to 5 decades still rely heavily on these patrons for all

infrastructure/utility provisioning, and for potential formalization of land title (Hakim

2012). A systematic and dawdling disbursement of infrastructure through

strategically prolonged promises also help sustain these interests and obedience. In

Roy (2004: 154)’s terms, this “choreographed unevenness”, deliberately devised and

maintained by the powerful actors lead to the curious construction of ‘in-between-

ness’ in these settlements characterized by a number of ‘neither-nor’ scenarios of

uncertainty. Both social and physical boundaries between legal and illegal, and

differentiations between formal and informal hence appear blurred and ambiguous –

7. KCC’s history suggests that each of its Mayors typically got elected from the same party

that formed the central government; thus central government organizations had to respond

to the Mayor’s and his party workers’ (including the ward councillors) political

persuasions even if they were illegitimate or extra-legal.

8. This is coined as “the coupling of party and state, the combining of informal party tactics

of mobilization with the formal state apparatus of infrastructure provision” (Roy 2004:

149).

9. 58.9% of Khulna’s urban population currently live in these so called “poor settlements”

(CUS-UNDP-KCC 2011: ii).

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benefitting the political actors to control this large demography yearning for

legitimization of their present land-tenure.

The tale of the ‘Allotment Slip’ also speaks of the various motives of the political

actors in nations like Bangladesh. The unresolved case of ownership therefore

sustains conditions that impart a sense of rootless-ness10

amongst the tenant migrants.

In a similar way, Ananya Roy’s seminal work on Kolkata in relation to its

Communist government’s manipulation of informality suggest that party politics

there has been an “everyday business” which ran parallel to government works.

Panchayet in the villages and party cadres in the urban informal settlements have

often played an active brokerage role between the central power and grassroots

migrants in order to maintain a systematic political control of the latter’s spaces. To

further strengthen this control “every detail of daily life from clogged toilets to

domestic disputes” and infrastructure provisioning was taken care of by these

brokers. Threatened by similar moves by opposition parties, there was also a

persistent “search” for new territories of support (read ‘voters’) through a “constant

recharging of patronage” (Roy 2004: 149). The “territorial flexibility”11

as practiced

by the Communist government was facilitated by the absence of a Master Plan, a

detailed land record and the simplification of land bureaucracy (by the government

itself) to formulate any such plan or land record (Ibid: 154-156). In addition, as in

Bangladesh, a legal provision called ‘vested property law’ was put in place in order to

facilitate the ruling regime to ‘informally’ acquire and expropriate any land in the

name of public interest (Ibid: 158).

10. In Bangladeshi context, ‘rootless-ness’ is defined by Ghafur (2006: 45) as “loss of

identity, privacy, comfort and protection enjoyed at home by default”.

11. Formation of numerous informal settlements on the city fringes, their eviction and

relocation, the illegal subdivision of peripheral agricultural land, their development using

the relocated informal population and their eventual selling off to large-scale private

sector projects (Opcit.).

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Such in-between-ness can also be found in another form that may be termed as the

‘politics with plinths and roofs’. ‘Plinths and roofs’, as an axiom, here portrays a

symbolic category that has crucial spatio-physical implications for migrant

settlements and their rather ‘slippery’ tenure status (e.g. settlements 1 and 7, Figure

4). Although not recognized on KDA maps as residential areas, these settlements

have physically expanded during the last six decades in a manner that many ‘formal’

townships and settlements of Khulna have not. Many buildings (some two-storied) in

these settlements were constructed using brick and other permanent materials, while

gentrification and property transfer remains part of everyday practice. Also, both

settlements have a long history of negotiation with elites. Settlement 1 with fish

merchants and shrimp factory owners, Christian Service Society (CSS) and KCC

Mayors and Ward Councillors from successive political regimes; settlement 7

initially with International Red Cross, and later with Stranded Pakistanis General

Repatriation Committee (SPGRC) and Ward Councillors and local MPs. Here,

migrants are allowed to do anything a normal owner is able to do: buy and sell

property, construct permanent building etc. Most urban infrastructure and utility

services are also available in both. Yet what makes their case interesting is the way

the permanent and temporary are made to work as a combination as migrants are not

allowed to construct permanent (concrete) roofs (Figure 3: middle and right).

Permanent roofs, as locally perceived, are culturally approved symbols of

permanence. So as roofless-ness is maintained to accentuate the condition of rootless-

ness, politics of in-between-ness makes its claim as an essential tool for authorities.

6.2.2.2 The ‘politics of control’

In many cases, the migrant dweller may compromise or give up portions of spatio-

territorial claim, for example, of his dwelling unit in order to strengthen household’s

privacy and social control at a higher level. In the context of severe deficiency of

space as in the (28’X11’) house in Figure 6.2 (left), a (6’X6’) verandah space has

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been given up for constructing a community bathroom cum water collection point

(circled). Although none of the inhabitants of settlement 7 are ‘owners’ in usual

sense, yet giving up of a tenth of what is already scarce according to most definitions

of ‘standard’, is certainly indicative of a different set of life priorities for this owner.

In black and white, this addition ensured her family a better privacy and for her

adolescent daughter in particular – who can now take her bath in the house without

having to go to the community bathroom. It also has saved the owner time that was

normally lost waiting in a water collection queue. However, the true intension of hers

is to be manifested in other gains. The female owner of this house, who is also a

cluster-leader for UNDP-run community improvement project (UPPRP) that operates

in settlement 7, was ready to make this apparently costly sacrifice on the ground that

this would eventually reinforce her social position. Although not willing to give in

initially, her ultimate compliance with the community’s decision for constructing this

service area within her home certainly has earned her added reputation in the eyes of

non-household actors such as community elders, neighbours (potential users of the

new bathing/water collection space) and other UPPRP project personnel.

This apparent sacrifice of valuable space, culminating in the construction of a very

small physical structure, therefore has had a much broader social implication. For this

owner, it legitimizes her position as a giving leader, and a competent woman for her

house premise has now become the centre-point of many everyday social activities.

For the community, this construction legitimizes community’s position as the key

decision-making body and re-affirms its authority over the control of socio-spatial

activities within the settlement. It also demonstrates the community’s strength to the

external actors (UPPRP officials, NGOs and local Ward Councillor) by

demonstrating its solidarity and preparedness for any sacrifice for community’s

betterment. The external actors, considering their individual intents, thus receive the

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message that any intervention (positive or negative) from their part must satisfy a

complex and hierarchical decision-making process.

Such ‘negotiated control’ in a different form may also be noticed in another dwelling-

level example (Figure 6.2 left). Here the Christian owner has allowed the Christian

Missionary-led NGO (CSS) to construct a pre-school in her house compound. Despite

being on a bigger plot of land compared with the previous case (50’X22’), running a

school (although very small in terms of space) certainly makes the owner to

compromise household’s privacy and loosen territorial control of the domestic space

to relax by sharing it with outsiders. Yet, the spiritual importance of the missionary in

the owner’s life, the economic gain that comes out from the small rent received, and

also the continuance of social relation with the NGO (for small loans, free healthcare

etc.) – have all made this owner to decide rather strategically. It led her subscribing to

an alternative control mechanism by opening up household spatial boundaries for

public use. Unlike the previous case with a complex decision-making structure, only

Figure 6.2: Compromised control: (left) part of house premise given up for community bath in

settlement 7; (right) previously vacant in-house space transformed into NGO-run pre-school

in settlement 1.

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two parties were involved here. But it is the greater socio-political gain that transpires

from the erection of a very small non-permanent structure (13’X11’ school-room) is

what hints of its commonality with the other case. In these settlements where people

are ever more anonymous than an average urban citizen, such territorial compromises

can only be seen as pieces of a persistent effort toward the formation of some sort of

identity. Any form of structure manifesting such negotiated control mechanisms, even

if they are made of bamboo and thatch, thus can be seen as landmarks that essentially

benefit identity formation for these poor migrants in the city.

6.2.2.3 The ‘politics of infrastructure’

With the aim to validate their present status and in order to become ‘visible’, migrants

engage in a ‘politics of infrastructure’ as well. These can be identified particularly at

the settlement level – in the realm of public. Irrespective of the hidden nature of all

these settlements, migrants put in efforts to legitimize their ‘illegality’ by trying and

getting recognized by as many formal public- (such as utilities boards, postal service

etc.) and private-sector institutions (e.g. NGOs) as they can. Construction of physical

infrastructure hence becomes the most practiced means towards achieving senses of

anchorage and claim. Infrastructure of any size, quantity or quality, even if unfit or

less required, are all accommodated. Infrastructures, which are at once visible and

permanent investments from the part of official bodies, are believed to leave a ‘formal

stamping’ on these otherwise informal and illegal spaces. All forms of exogenous

interventions, including NGO- or Donor-led infrastructure projects hence are

welcomed and enthusiastically pursued. NGOs having their own objectives (such as

Donor-defined so called Slum Upgrading Projects), also make use of this opportunity

and continue funding for schools and community buildings, communal and individual

baths and toilets, water distribution points, sewer drains and internal roads. Through

these interventions, different interests of both parties converge onto a single point – a

project of mutual interest and mutual claim.

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Infrastructures with political implication may also be self-financed. In large

settlements as in settlement 6, secondary schools, Madrasah and Yatimkhana12

are

built, managed and promoted by the community itself where outsiders can also send

their children to (Figure 6.3). Likewise, in the Harijanpara Kali Mandir in settlement

3 – self-financed by the Harijan community, where a Muslim woman from a distant

district is seen sitting before this Hindu temple (circled, Figure 6.3) waiting for a

spiritual healing session to begin. Although the Mandir primarily serves the ritual

purpose of the Harijan, outsiders even from other faiths are also invited to join. The

spiritual healing session that takes place every Tuesday afternoon on the temple

12. Arabic terms referring to a Muslim religious school and an orphanage respectively. These

are both religiously significant institutions. A Yatimkhana is a residential facility

(generally for orphan boys) that occurs simultaneously with an educational institute. It is

a particularly sensitive institution in any Muslim society since Prophet Muhammad (SM)

was himself an orphan, while he repeatedly stressed the importance of taking good care of

the orphans. Madrasahs and Yatimkhanas are very common in Bangladeshi villages and

towns; they are run by different forms (and sums) of donation from both wealthy and

poor, and from both landlord and tenant. Any acts that benefit the erection, management

and continuity of these institutions are widely perceived as acts of divinity.

Figure 6.3: Infrastructure politics (clockwise, from top left corner): electricity meter at

settlement 1; less used toilet structure at settlement 3; school, Madrasah and orphanage at

settlement 6; community building at settlement 4; Hindu Mandir in settlement 3.

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premise and is conducted by the priest, is actually a more secular event that draws in

people from different faiths and from different areas of Khulna. The non-monetary

transactions and information flows between migrant communities and outside

societies by making use of the sites of both modern and traditional (religiously

sensitive) institutions and edifices again help earn a good name for the community.

Still unable to make any permanent claim on the land, migrant community’s

establishment of these apparently ‘neutral’ public infrastructures then start to make

sense. One realizes how their many socio-financial investments in these

infrastructures are aimed to elevate their status to the level of any other ‘mainstream

citizen’ and hence reinforce their claims for the ‘volatile’ lands they are holding

presently. As widely held by tenant migrants, these interventions are also acts of

‘territorial compromise’, which allow outsiders to penetrate and help them positively

transform their spatio-physical environment. In the naive eyes, these are simply

outside assistances, merely donations made to compensate for the lacks. Yet a critical

reading into this strategic loosening of territorial control shows it is also a means of

sanitizing these settlements’ present negative image of a ‘Bastee’ or a ‘Colony’.

6.2.3 Scarcity or alternative materiality: ‘density’ question revisited

In the hunter-gatherer society of the “uneconomic man”, human wants are limited and

few; people enjoy material abundance with lower standard of living by being free

from the market-creation of scarcity (Bronfenbrenner 1962: 266). Likewise,

Australian aborigines prosper on what is considered ‘insufficient’ in modern

definitions. Although their access to material, edible and instrumental resources is

limited, “it still allows them to open up to an astonishingly abundant set of mythical

and human horizons. Scarcity only makes sense in relation to the context (physical,

material or conceptual) which it is part of” (Till 2011: 1). Taking account of this

context-dependent character of scarcity and basing on the premise that migrants’

wants, as in pre-modern societies, are limited without options, and conditioned by

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manufactured scarcities, the apparently ‘slum-like’ migrant spaces then can also be

viewed as “alternative ideal environments” (Ghafur 2010: 12). Characterized by

“mobility, resilience and adaptiveness”, these spaces suggest of underlying ‘synthetic

processes’ where “social and spatial boundaries are inscribed, erased (and) identities

are formed, expressed and transformed” (Dovey 2012: 353). Here I emphasize

primarily on one of his ‘slow variables’ i.e. ‘density’, which he believes, could

potentially “push the system accorss a threshold into a new regime or identity” (Ibid:

355). Based mainly on Amos Rapoport (1975)’s ‘Redefinition of Density’, the idea of

density as a complex formation of ‘alternative’ socio-spatial practices and principles

is analyzed in the context of Khulna’s migrant settlements.

Simple quantitative derivative of population density however does not reveal the

‘limits to density’ – the threshold beyond which density begins to feel like crowding.

Density is thus a “perceived experience” and “should be seen as more than the

number of people per unit area”. To understand how the apparently ‘crowded slums’

continue to work just fine as “effective living environments” for the migrants, one

must understand “how individuals respond to other members under specific

conditions, previous experiences, and social organization” (Rapoport 1975: 134). The

core components that construct both the idea of crowding and density hence is the

awareness about ‘others’. This awareness is formed using all the senses, and a

consciousness based on direct interaction or spatio-physical mechanisms about the

“sharing of spaces and facilities, as well as cultural and physical defences which help

control this awareness about others” (Ibid: 135). So to understand how migrant

population go about ‘others’, there is a need to understand the context of Khulna’s

migrant settlements in comparative numerical terms of density.

Desired densities can vary significantly across cultures and between places within the

same culture or setting. The gross population density of New York is

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32persons/hectare; in Manhattan it is 215persons/hectare (UN-HABITAT 2013: 34),

while in Lower East side 11th Ward it is 4680 persons/hectare (Demographia 2013).

In Hong Kong’s public sector neighbourhoods, population density may count as high

as 4000 persons/hectare (Wong 2010: 323). In the studied settlements, population

density came out very high, and significantly similar to local and international

standards. In settlements 1, 3, 4 and 6 (larger ones) the net density counts

approximately at 3140, 1380, 1550 and 1260 persons/hectare respectively13

(Hakim

2012). Similar numbers also emerge from mega-city settlements such as in Dhaka’s

private informal settlements (3400persons/hectare; KDA 2002a: 61); Mumbai’s

Dharavi and Karachi’s Nawalane (3000 and 3400 persons/hectare respectively; see

Hasan 2010a: 267-268).

Comparing New York with Hong Kong or Karachi hence is risky. As 215

persons/hectare works very well for Manhattan, a gross density of up to 3500

persons/hectare still provides good housing environments14

with low- to mid-rise

buildings in Mumbai’s Dharavi or Karachi’s Orangi Project (Hasan 2010a: 268).

Numbers, as inconsistent as above also substantiate Rapoport (1975: 149)’s claim that

high, medium, and lower density can only be evaluated in terms of particular socio-

culturally and spatially implicit norms and the way they are perceived by the

‘insiders’. Notwithstanding the many lacks15

associated with Khulna’s migrant

13. Khulna’s planning documents project an ‘overall density’ for its old core areas at 286

persons/hectare for year 2010 (KDA 2002a: 15), and 500persons/hectare for year 2020

(KDA 2002b: 54). A recent study (CUS-UNDP-KCC 2011: 36), however, concludes that

the overall density in many migrant settlements located in and around the core area have

already reached those levels if not exceeded. In the wards 22, 21, 1 and 9 in which

settlements 1, 3, 4 and 6 are located respectively, the net population density already

recorded are: 513, 134, 55 and 178persons/hectare.

14. Density is one aspect what the idea of the ‘city’ is all about; the contemporary reappraisal

of ‘compact city’ discourse also highlights this. On a similar note, David Satterthwaite

(2003: 34) writes, “world’s current 3 billion urban population would fit into an area of

200,000 km2, at densities similar to those of high class, much valued inner city residential

areas of European cities”.

15. Theoretically, these settlements lack legal status of ownership (as squatter); lack ‘ideal’

physical qualities (e.g. space, durability, water, sanitation and other infrastructure

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settlements, following ‘threads of alternative socio-spatial principles’ demonstrate

how the idea of density might have a different meaning there.

6.2.3.1 Benefit from ‘crowding’

In the studied settlements, potential behavioural unpredictability associated with

close-by living with heterogeneous population groups has been overcome by a sense

of solidarity realized through a ‘shared common fate’. One man’s household-level

(personal) issues are viewed as a problem for the overall commune and dealt with, in

many cases, at the community level. Because resources are limited, and choices are

crippled by a lack of alternatives, only a sustained relation ensures synergy and hence

ensures access to those resources as if they are meant for all (e.g. usage of the street

space without conflict). Problem solutions are eventually quiet and negotiated,

although might be loud and contested initially. Illicit issues, such as drug trades (in

settlement 1) and human-trafficking (from settlement 3) are not commonly disclosed

to outsiders. It is not because it might lead to personal danger, but it is because

discussing might earn a bad name for the community at large and would potentially

endanger any future claim for legitimacy. Problems are hence retained within the

settlement, and efforts are given to resolve them by the help of community elites

mostly. Long years of socio-cultural exchange (e.g. inter-marriage between regional

groups) and introduction of new settlers through regional or personal networks ensure

predictable socio-spatial behaviour (that Somerville 1997 calls “mutual familiarity”;

p. 236), reduce the ‘elements of uncertainty’. This eases the need for constant

communication and hence the need for maintaining greater physical distance. This

explains Rapoport (1975: 143)’s assertion that a need for constant communication is

reduced when there are fixed and recognized relationships, agreed-upon rules,

appropriate cues, symbols and markers, and also defences. The prevailing form of

necessary for a ‘comfortable’ human habitation as in a slum), and/or lack formal control

over planning, design and construction (as informal settlement) (Dovey 2012: 351).

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social organization in these settlements also elaborates Altman (1975: 80)’s

hypothesis that “positive relationships between people are associated with closer

interpersonal distances while people located at close distances (tend to) have good

interpersonal relationships”. The more favourable the social relations are, closer is the

distance between people (Ibid: 36).

Heterogeneity, which is said to increase unpredictable behaviour, reduce redundancy

and lead to inappropriate actions (Rapoport 1975: 140), is also used rather

constructively in the context of these settlements. In fact, the overall resilience of

these settlements depends to a large extent, on how the presence of culturally

heterogeneous elements16

are politically used to retain an amicable social relation that

serve a number of purposes including the support for vulnerable tenure situation. It is

true for both ‘illegal’ settlements (e.g. 1, 3, or 9) and legal settlements (4, 6), where

migrants’ regional identity is used to liaise and coalesce with the political (and

seldom bureaucratic) personnel having the same regional identity. For example, as in

the mid-rise slums of settlement 9, two representatives from each building are

selected who would negotiate and bargain with the Mayor in times of crisis. Although

these representatives belong to the Mayor’s party, their regional origin is what

matters above all. For having the same regional origin that of the Mayor, these

representatives bargain and negotiate with assurance, with trust and also with an

additional sense of bonding going even beyond the party’s interest. This socio-

political mechanism, however, is generic. As regime changes and a different Mayor

from a different party takes office, new representatives replace the earlier. The

migrant inhabitants, beyond their political prejudice, would now extend their

unconditional support to these new key personnel. The presence of heterogeneous

population groups in each of these apparently crowded settlements and their

16. For example, diversity according to a particular regional dialect and geographic location,

or according to religious affiliations.

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involvement in an unrelenting political process therefore ensure financial support by

Mayor’s office (through KCC and NGOs) for example, for carrying out renovation

works (Figure 6.4).

6.2.3.2 Obscured boundaries

Perception of density and its evaluation depends on both desired and actual level of

interaction between people and their socio-spatial environment – hence the way

socio-spatial boundaries are defined and maintained by the inhabitants of the

settlement concerned (Rapoport 1975: 142). Typically, migrant settlements are high-

density agglomerations where conditions are often exacerbated by ‘intricate’ physical

conditions such as minimum greenery and maximum man-made features, lack of

public space and shortage of land for non-residential use, more forms than spaces etc.

Both individually and collectively, all these add up and lead to a negative

construction of density (Ibid: 138-140). Yet, an underlying mechanism of synthesis

has been intently devised and gradually converted into practice. To overcome the

constraints of fixed private-public, communal and state boundaries, the definition and

implications of density statistics appear insignificant when social and spatial

boundaries are made to work flexibly, permeably, sometimes ambiguously and by

even serving dual purposes. Through these means nevertheless, forms, spaces and

associated social exchanges find alternative usage and meaning.

Figure 6.4: (Left) settlement 10, People’s Panchtala mid-rise squatter – Building 1

undergoing renovation works overseen by building representatives belonging to Mayor’s

party and of his same regional origin; circled is a signboard by the ruling regime (Mayor)’s

supporters claiming this building as a memorial club; (Right) another ex-office building is

claimed by the same supporters, to be used as another ‘clubhouse’.

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Figure 6.5: (Left) shared functional space leading to social exchange between landlord and her

tenants in settlement 5; (Middle) territorial encroachment of public street during dry winter

seasons; (Right) spiritual corner (with deity) in ‘bed room’ space in settlement 3.

Here, as in settlement 3, a room for rest and retreat equally performs as a place for

spiritual fulfilment; a public street temporally becomes a living, child-rearing, or

seasonally, a cooking space (Figure 6.5: middle and right). Church or Mosque

premises continue to serve as children’s play area or other domestic purposes in

settlement 3 and 5 respectively; while within the privately owned migrant-house in

settlement 5, the conventional landlord-tenant distinction becomes as blurred. It is

also here a solitary space for social exchange and domestic cohort is created between

the landlord and his/her tenants, and remains negotiated (Figure 6.5: left). This

substantiates a prior proposition that in small-scale housing markets, resident owners’

relationship with tenants remain personal and is enforced by social exchange. Small

owners as such are also able to achieve greater social efficiency at a lower cost and

are benefitted socially and economically (Peattie 1994: 140-141).

6.2.3.3 Spatial compromises

The urban dwelling unit of the rural migrant is often used as a space for retail and

production. Indeed, practices of using the entire household premise as a space for

economic production is only natural in the context of a predominantly agrarian

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Bangladeshi society17

(Hakim 2010). In the rural context, household space also has its

multiple uses (e.g. sleeping room also used for storage). Due to the agrarian nature of

production, open spaces are often required around which house forms are arranged

(Ali 2005; Hakim and Ahmed 2007). In the presence of homestead income-

generating sources, renting or other commercial/production-oriented use of space is

not felt as well. In the context of the urban house, however, similar practices cannot

be expected because of the non-agrarian nature of livelihoods, and also considering

the space scarcity compared to rural households. Yet driven by the need to

supplement livelihoods, the unregulated dwelling spaces are often used for income

generation (as in Peattie 1994: 136). And quite evidently, the domestic realm – the

only spatial resource available at the personal level is often allowed to be permeated

to incite economic return. In addition to income generation through the engagement

of household members (mostly women), various associations are established and

alliances are maintained with the actors (e.g. NGOs, local businessmen) whom the

migrants deem ‘important’. This allows both parties to gain materially and socially as

the following paragraph illustrates.

In settlement 1 for example, works, particularly related to backward linkages of

nearby export-oriented industries (e.g. fish scaling, carton making) are done within

the confines of one’s house (Figure 6.6). These works benefit both; the industrialist

elite benefits from saving factory space, supply and utility cost, and most of all

crucial ‘labour hours’, while the migrant worker benefits from a flexible time

schedule (particularly for women members in a family), minimum travel cost and

easier marketability. Also through these ‘primarily economic transactions’, a

symbiotic social relation with the industrial-elite is also established. These

17. Although a typology exists (Ali 2005: 253), a typical rural homestead includes open land,

multiple dwelling units shared amongst members of the extended family, orchards and

vegetable gardens, cowsheds and poultry house, and at least a pond (Ahmed 2006: 10-

11).

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arrangements provide the migrants considerable leverage in retaining their occupancy

of settlement territories and leading to a more intense and vibrant mix of activities.

The elite support thus remains crucial especially to neutralize eviction threats or

during times when some financial assistance is required (e.g. donation for the medical

treatment of an ailing member of community, during marriage or funeral etc.).

On the other hand, NGO intervention in built environment is also noteworthy. They

prompt for trading of domestic privacy for migrants’ economic (and also their own)

gains (e.g. Saree making, as in settlement 6). Similar is found at the settlement level.

Space, although scarce, is often sacrificed for accommodating community level

infrastructure upgradation by NGOs. This is an opportunity that both would take with

relative ease. Again a sense of synergy underlies these transactions in anticipation of

continuing social gains. For the migrant, NGOs remain the only government they

have ever known; NGOs, although not loved always, are still considered as ‘the key

providers’ of livelihood issues including education, healthcare, sanitation,

infrastructure and instant credit. So things initially seen as the negative components

of density i.e. enhanced activities, movements and ‘information flows’, and also the

domestic encroachments, are not in fact crowding per se. The same conditions of

round-the-clock activities (as in settlements 1 and 10), which are feared would

worsen the perception of density (Rapoport 1975: 139) becomes the most important

factor behind household’s financial gain, women’s empowerment and economic

Figure 6.6: (left to right) NGO signboard describing the nature of their involvement in

settlement 5; house interior transformed into workspace for producing export-oriented

commodities (Saree at settlement 6, and shrimp at settlement 1).

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security, settlement’s reputation and hence a bargaining tool for safeguarding it, and

also a key driver for economic growth of the city.

The situated practices of privacy in Khulna’s migrant settlements are of socio-spatial

compromises and negotiations; a crude example of this may be the frequent

occurrence of bathing and cooking in public space. According to Dovey (2012: 358),

such fluidity of form, practices and meaning essentially suggest of “slippages”. Yet in

this predominantly Muslim society, the notion of privacy is clearly defined with

implications for a gendered distinction of space18

. This was stressed by both male and

female members of Muslim migrant households. Hindu (settlement 3) and Christian

(settlement 1) migrants have also expressed the need for similar level of privacy –

revealing that privacy is culturally desired rather defined solely by religion. So when

slippages as above occur, scarcity of space is naturally held responsible. But a deeper

look also reveals that once such slippages have become customary through decades of

residence within the familiar context19

, they cannot be viewed as consequences of

scarcity merely. Instead, these slippages may also be seen as deliberate acts of socio-

spatial compromise made by migrant populations to establish territorial claims over

neighbourhood level spaces for conducting particular ‘private’ activities. The usage

of spatio-behavioural means hence helps retain a desired level of privacy within the

limits of scarcity. Familiarity with rules of spatial encounter patterns (e.g. particular

male and female time-slots for using community baths), and knowing and respecting

each other’s boundaries (e.g. street-level cooking stall in Figure 6.5: middle) actually

allow these people to maintain privacy within the realm of the public.

18. Considering migrant’s rural origin, a review of rural house forms and spaces further

substantiate that a variety of spatio-physical mechanisms, including zoning and

sequencing of open, semi-open and enclosed spaces, use of barriers (vegetation and

screen), and time-zoning are all traditionally used for ensuring a desired level of privacy

(Ahmed 2007: 12; Muktadir and Hasan 1985: 82, 84).

19. Positive outcome of a desired level of density is related to familiar patterns of interaction

between migrant dwellers and other actors who use that public space equally. Privacy is

seen as the ability to control unwanted interactions (Rapoport 1975: 140).

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On the other hand, the feeling of crowdedness also depends on the types of income

generation activities that are performed in these settlements and in relation to their

location within a particular settlement. Since both types of home-based income-

generating activities (renting and producing) require space, both contribute to the

perception of crowdedness equally at the household level and the public level of these

already ‘crowded’ settlements. This can be observed in the subdivision of a house

into multiple rentable rooms, leading to the feeling of crowdedness at the dwelling

level. This can also be found in the extension of dwelling-level income generating

activities on the public level or in the public level encroachment for income

generation. This feeling of crowdedness however becomes tolerable as a number of

synergistic social, political and economic benefits are yielded from home-based

works and enterprises; this has already been elaborated in Chapter 5.

6.2.3.4 ‘Becoming’ brick-by-brick

Micro-accumulation and harnessing of social and human capitals to the fullest

epitomize the resource accumulation mechanism for migrants; rather paying for a

house in instalments, it is more like building a house in instalments (Peattie 1994:

136) involving a process of inhabitation20

. Rather than housing that put common

people into disadvantage as seen during recent economic downturn in the US, this

mode of self-reinstatement actually suits the economic circumstances of someone like

the migrant. A lack of housing finance21

has also been a ‘good thing’ after all; with

their irregular income, committing to fixed monthly payments would have actually

imperilled the possibility of a house at all (similar has been stressed by Peattie 1994:

136). In Khulna settlements, it is only the people with some form of regular income

(shop-owners, contracted labourers etc.) who actually seem to do well to renew their

20. This process based on customary practices and everyday activities by the agents, contrasts

the static and program-based modern building practices (Habraken 1998: 134-135).

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loans by being able to pay back instalments in time. Illegal occupancy also implies

immediate home-making for the migrant in his preferred locations. As a result they

have to spend less for housing. Whereas global average spending for accommodation

is around 40%-50% of monthly income, the squatter-owners tend to spend only 10-

15% for maintaining the otherwise non-permanent buildings. This is how the ‘illegal’

tenant could save on rent and could use that savings for upgrading their settlements22

.

6.2.3.5 Redundancy and micro-adaptability

Redundancy is defined as the capacity of a system to perform in diverse (alternative)

ways to adopt to change by moving forms, functions and flows around, while its parts

performing different functions (Dovey 2012: 356). The migrant settlements and

particularly the dwelling units can be viewed as redundant forms, which are flexible

enough to cope with the changing conditions. In response to space and monetary

lacks, micro-adaptability of spatial elements help form to operate redundantly by

producing alternative choices right at the very site where form is faced with

constraints. In addition to the examples of density, transformation of form, space and

usage to cope with changing needs can be traced here (Figure 6.7). In settlement 6,

multiple examples can be found where government-provided 15’X30’ plots of land

under a site and services scheme have been transformed to cope with a myriad of

situations. Growing family needs or economic decisions led to ‘stitching’ of adjacent

plots as an extended family house, as rentable units, as a school or even as a small-

scale food industry (Figure 6.7: top). Similarly in S1H1, its 32-year long

morphological history reveals its redundant character; Figure 6.7 (bottom) shows how

in response to successive socio-spatial challenges that include top-down

21. Though small loans for house building (equivalent to US$100-150) can now be taken

from NGOs and UPPRP cooperatives, NGOs still do not officially admit that they provide

loans for house building; yet again, both parties benefit by being ‘informal’.

22. Although not adequate, UNDP-led settlement improvement projects operating in

Khulna’s migrant settlements (LPUPAP) could still make the migrant communities to

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interventions, the house-form has morphed and thus has been able to withstand those

challenges. The process of transformation, which might look expensive initially, has

also been benefitted by the usage of locally available non-permanent (replaceable and

affordable in nature) materials.

Redundancy also

manifests in the

entrepreneur-like

opportunist responses

during moments of

crises. In the events of

incidents, migrants

seem to take advantage

of the situation by

adapting swiftly and

claiming even more

than that has been lost.

Following hazards,

natural calamities or

eviction drives, large-

scale protests and

lobbying take place.

Particularly in larger

settlements (e.g. 1 and 6), these movements are to be dealt with by Mayor, Ward

Councillor or opposition leaders with utmost care. Although these movements seldom

bring about material compensations, yet they create other prospects. Example of a fire

save more than 100,000USD between 2000 to 2007 by saving 0.5USD per month by a

single cooperative group of 10-12 people (UNDP 2007: 7).

Figure 6.7: (Top-left) – two adjacent ‘formal’ plots of land

stitched together to form a single plot in settlement 6; (top-right)

– house accommodates community school in settlement 6;

(bottom) floating dwelling unit first transforms into shop-front

house after landfill in settlement 1 (P2); when widening of road

takes shop away and house front becomes the back of new

roadside shop, previous shop-space becomes rentable rooms

while house-form extends vertically (P3).

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hazard in 2004, which burnt down a significant portion of settlement 1, shows how

this incident was used as an excuse to build back permanent houses. Using this rather

relevant cause that permanent houses are less prone to fire, and subsequently

negotiating with the local Ward Councillor, a number of both burnt and un-burnt

Katcha houses were quickly rebuilt into brick buildings. Thus the power of

collectivism was demonstrated while tenure claims got reinforced by using the hazard

as a bargaining tool for permanent construction.

6.2.3.6 Less is more

As homelessness has become pervasive even in the most developed of nations,

activism about ‘micro houses’ in Tokyo or ‘small house movement’ in the US

(Ferraro 2009) demonstrates the reinvigorated belief in the essentials under

contemporary global downturn in economy. People have started questioning the

limits of so called ‘standards of living’ and aiming to redefine them using newer real-

life standards23

. People remain engaged in search for certain qualities in certain places

where they are not expected to be found. Proponents of the concept of sustainability

are asking to do more with less and revert to the Miesian axiom of “less is more” in a

conceptual level. Spatial-tactics are often being considered better than actually

building while ‘doing things’ have become a question of degrees with the right dose

(Bouman 2006: 115). Migrant forms and spaces, looked at through this lens are more

about maximizing potentials of the existing forms and spaces rather creating new

forms which are more resource consuming. Indeed, one might view this ‘less building

– more managing of the existing’ mode of transformation as ‘slum romanticism’ and

criticize this bypassing the ‘real problem of slum formation’. Yet, given the space

constraints and other challenges, many of which are constructed, these are ‘lived’

forms and spaces that came out of decades-long bottom up efforts and practices. For a

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large number of these permanent migrants, the rhizomic development of their

dwelling units have given them a sense of accomplishment which certainly has

followed an upwardly direction over the years. This has been done by harnessing the

‘on-hand’ spatio-physical resource potentials (e.g. maximize usage of house-interior,

house-form, house-front road space etc.) to their fullest.

Among these settlements, for example, at dwelling-neighbourhood intersections, each

‘apparently insignificant’ spatial element is deemed valuable. There is practically no

space – not even a small niche, which goes without a use. Space also remains flexible

in the sense that it readily accommodates alternative usage should demands change.

This can be seen in how a small vegetable garden is developed on top of a pigeon-

cage (upper floor), behind which a temporary poultry-shed is erected (Figure 6.8:

left). However, what now is the garden and the poultry-shed were originally

conceived as the first floor verandah and a future extension space of sleeping room

respectively. Currently, however, the owner has a different idea. Now, he is

23. Saha (2011) reports of an architect-activist (who is also a University lecturer) who, with

an aim to finding out how to live only on essentials, has been living in one of Dhaka’s

Figure 6.8: (Left) spatial management - less by newer permanent constructions but more by

accommodating needs; effective performance of house-form even having formal and

functional incongruence (between upper and lower floors) and unplanned additions (pigeon

housing, elevated vegetable garden etc. (settlement 6). (Right) street accommodating all

additional purpose - clothe drying, playing, moving about, enjoying the winter morning sun

and rearing livestock (settlement 1).

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considering a modification of the front part of the upper floor into a small rentable

unit. Since street-facing upper units are typically lucrative amongst rent-seekers, he

expects to receive higher monetary return as it would be required in the coming days.

In addition, the Mosque loudspeaker for Azan (call for prayer) has also found its place

on this private house facade for it is the tallest building around. It shows that the

‘core’ characteristic of this small house-form is used for social service (and for

strengthening social relations) as well. There is a similar trend of multiple usage in

the streets of Khulna (Figure 6.8: right), where the same narrow space is optimized

for a number of everyday activities while still serving its original purpose. So

harnessing the spatial potentials of a meagre 30’X30’ house-form, or of a 5’ wide

public street hence point out to the maximization of the ‘less’ at hand. Alongside this

maximization process of the ‘less’, however, various socio-spatial negotiations are

made (see how the bicycle is making its way through!) while a much greater sum of

socio-economic gains are acquired.

6.2.4 Scarcity during modernity: the urbanism of negotiations

“And so if scarcity is a product, then there is space for all of us to consider

ourselves as part of that production and do something about it”

(Henri Lefebvre quoted in Till 2011: 10).

There indeed is social, cultural and spatial room for manoeuvre; and as both ‘real’

and ‘constructed’ scarcities are worked out through the negotiation of spatial claims

and hence in the ‘quiet interplay’ between the elite and the subaltern, low income

settlement forms continue to evolve. Opportunist tactics from all actors in response to

waves of scarcities also influence form-making. The politics of in-between-ness is

therefore mediated by politics of infrastructure at the level of communities, and by

the manipulation of density structure at the level of the migrant dweller. The

perceived deficiencies and densities, at least what is presumed from outside, turns out

largest slums for about four years now.

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to be something not in need of external fix. Successful migrants’ socio-spatial

mechanisms have particular and proven ‘ways of fixing’ things, which also enhance

solidarity. For a sustained stay, strategic construction of a social-network with elites24

thus seems inventive, where settlement configurations to a certain extent are allowed

to be controlled by individual elites or by a combination of them. The personal

interactions with the elite thus may be viewed as a usual episode in agrarian

Bangladeshi society. Even under modern democratic condition as of today, identical

hierarchical class-structure is still to be found in rural Bangladesh. Elites there still

play an “active brokerage role between villagers and wider institutions” (Lewis and

Hossain 2008: 48-49). So in the prevailing urban context, this may be viewed as a

revival of traditional social structure in response to the modern (post-agrarian)

episodes of land/housing scarcity in the city25

. But either way, this present-day

occurrence of an elite regime that in many ways resembles the pre-colonial

hierarchical (land)-ruling class26

demonstrates that Khulna’s is a highly stratified

social structure, and for someone ordinary like the migrants, compliance to these elite

is a time-tested tactic for overcoming material inadequacies.

Therefore, as the Khulna Master Plan of 2002 proves to be highly theoretical, it

becomes subject to the manipulation of successive Mayors and Ward Councillors,

influential actors (e.g. fishing businessmen), and migrant community groups (such as

CDC groups in UPPRP projects) on a day to day basis; this also determines the

ultimate configuration of the settlements. Social networks (e.g. kinship, regional and

political) also play a key role behind the shaping of these settlements as the way they

grow. The various negotiations that are made between different actors on these

networks hence determine the eventual spatio-physical outcome. The notion of

24. Murubbi (community elder), Neta (political leader), NGO in-charge, Mayor and Ward

Councillor, religious institutions namely Masjid, Church or Mandir committees.

25. This is pointed out in Raharjo (2010)’s review of “Traditional and modern” in Chapter 2.

244

scarcity thus becomes dependent on who has the power to make decision on land and

other scarce resources and how that is negotiated. Scarcity thus manifests as a

relational concept, deeply rooted in local perceptions about what and how resources

are valued, and whether rendered scarce or not. In the Bangladeshi context, this then

drives different actors to assume different roles while each of them looking to retain

control of the land-related resources in particular.

Similarly at the household level, migrant populations make use of the strategies same

as those by the rural landless population by making “innovative use of kinship and

other ideologies (to) legitimating reciprocity and mutual aid to re-establish

themselves rent-free on the land of others” (Indra and Norman 1997: 26). With

cultural approval, such practices remain rooted in the vernacular customs27

. These can

be viewed as creative acts manifested in the way people make use of their social

world ingeniously, and play with control-mechanisms through acts of compromise,

negotiation and occasional resistance in times of need. For the migrant, this ‘cultural

scheme’ of using the ‘social’ in combination and often inseparably with the ‘spatial’

compensates for his/her spatio-economic shortcomings. Particularly in a transitioning

society, where the dynamics between scarcity and opportunity is complex and

unrelenting, conditions of ‘not having enough’ appears only as another stage in

transition – a mere period of ‘not having’. As long as the periods such as those under

‘modern’ conditions would occur, they would most likely be dealt with ‘creativity’ of

some sort, using elements of the built environment (land, buildings, infrastructure

etc.) as its key instruments.

26. Zamindar, Jotedar or Mathbar, or the socio-political superiority of late-colonial English-

educated higher middle class ‘Bhadrolok’ (Nahiduzzaman 2003: 50).

27. “Extended entitlements” (Dreze and Sen 1989: 11) is a socio-economic concept; it shows

how members of a poor family use the socially sanctioned rights through a range informal

social relations (rather than formal legal rights of ownership), which becomes the primary

means of accessing food, health care and other necessary household commodities.

‘Entitlements’ refers to the set of alternative commodity bundles that a person may

command, using the totality of (possible) rights and opportunities that the person gets

(Southerton 2011: 1248).

245

Nevertheless, these events of reciprocity are nothing new. The discussions hitherto

also substantiate the two hypotheses that in a non-market society, people still tend to

satisfy their wants using alternative logics that incorporate reciprocity, redistribution

and exchange (Bronfenbrenner 1962: 265). People also cooperate with each other in

times of adversity to avoid high transaction costs associated with their failure to

comply (Southerton 2011: 1247). Castells and Portes (1989: 26) similarly noted that

“(informalities are) flexible, ad-hoc form of economic activity that, while reviving

old methods of primitive exploitation, also provides room for personal interaction.

The small-scale and face-to-face features of these activities make living through crisis

a more manageable experience than waiting in line for relief from impersonal

bureaucracies”. Under the constructed conditions of scarcity during today’s modern

third world context, these ‘revival of old methods’, and ‘cooperation’ hence can be

likened with the ongoing reciprocal relation between the elite and the ordinary

migrant. In addition, terms such as ‘flexibility’ and ‘alternative logic’ emerge as

expressions in response to a particular context, which in Khulna, are the spatio-

physical compromises that migrants make in response to the manifold scarce

conditions produced by modernity.

Ananya Roy (2011: 223) wrote that “the theorization of the megacity and its

subaltern spaces and subaltern classes provides accounts of the slum as a terrain of

habitation, livelihood, self-organization and politics”. In the present reign of

modernity therefore, a study that combines historic events of constructed scarcities

ranging from top-down to grass-root levels, their socio-political implications as

manifested in the many moments of negotiation, and their spatial consequences hence

hint of a framework to grasp urban transformation in cities like Khulna. The roles of

different actors inform about their agency28

in this framework.

28. Agency “is the capability, the power, to be the source and originator of acts; agents are

the subjects of action, deployed in debates over the relationship between individuals and

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6.3 Home and scarcity

Most literatures on ‘home’ as reviewed in Chapter 2 can be criticized for being

acontextual; they suffer from not being able to delineate any clear indicators to

explain ordinary migrants’ home-making in an ordinary third world city. Works are

also limited which examine ‘home’ in relation to wider socio-political-economic

conditions that historically prevails in a particular society – as in the concept of

land/resource ‘scarcity’ in modern Bangladesh context. How then the concept of

home culminates in the idea of scarcity in the particular context of Khulna? How does

this pair of concepts help comprehend each other? Referring back to the conceptual

model and the indicators for measuring territorial practices in Chapter 2 (Figure 2.3),

some key themes have been identified in Chapter 5 (Table 5.2). Indeed, these themes

have been used in other spatial analyses (e.g. under the rhetoric of ‘politics’) in this

Chapter. This section, however, rather briefly aims to establish a more direct

correlation between conditions of scarcity and spatial practices for boundary control

as the key variables of home. It demonstrates that the notions of both ‘real’ and

‘constructed’ scarcity manifested in the many lacks, and also in the legal-illegal

dilemma or in the formal-informal impasse affect the way in which people go about

their everyday spatial acts; scarcity also affects the way they claim and control their

personal space and public territories, get familiar with it, and become able to identify

themselves both as an individual and also as a group within the urban context.

6.3.1 Everyday negotiation

At the higher-level of migrants’ urban home, i.e. at the level of settlements, the notion

of ownership remains the most important component for home-making. As seen, the

policy-process necessary for obtaining any sense of ownership, i.e. upgradation from

illegal/informal to legal/formal, however, have intentionally been kept complicated

social structure...(and) pertain...to the nature of individual consciousness, its ability to

constitute and reconstitute itself, and...the extent of its freedom from exterior

247

and prolonged. This can be viewed as one form of scarcity – a ‘neither-nor’

condition, which is curable, yet constructed by national-level politicians and

persistently maintained by their local level party officio (e.g. Mayor, Ward

Councillors, party cadres etc.) and government bureaucracies (e.g. Planning machine

such as KDA). Although migrants living in different ‘illegal’ settlements (as in

Settlement 1, 3 or 4) have continued to convey their preparedness for paying off any

sort of fees or instalments for acquiring a formal ownership, little has changed over

the years. The same politicians (e.g. rule-makers such as MPs) who could have solved

the problem by implementing favourable bylaws for settling the ownership issue for

the hundreds of thousands of these ‘slum-living’ migrant dwellers, rather prefers

leaving options open for an on-site negotiation of issues chief amongst which is the

issue of land ownership. Although it has been observed that with a more ‘settled’

state of ownership, migrant inhabitants tend to show a greater sense of belonging to

their dwelling environments and hence to the overall physical environment it is part

of, the process of acquiring a more formal ownership in most settlement has remained

subject to everyday negotiations with both political and bureaucratic machinery.

Indeed, this leaves a certain amount of power to the disposal of this apparently

ordinary and powerless group of citizens as the migrants are. This day to day

encounter imparts them with certain know-how about how the government and its

political-bureaucratic machinery works, who hold the decision-making positions, and

how things are ‘done’ even if informally.

This process, through which one acquires and maintains the ownership outside the

formal mechanisms as in Western societies has been largely unspoken of in

Somerville (1997)’s theory of home. On the other hand, although Rapoport (1995:

45) views home as a manifestation of sets of relationships between people and system

of settings, ‘setting’ nevertheless does not necessarily comprehend a ‘man-made’

determination” (Rapport and Overing 2003: 1).

248

condition that scarcity instills. Yet at large, scarcity as a socio-political creation of

modern times appears to be a successful concept that aids the authorities to control

ordinary migrants’ tenure and ownership situations, hence home-making in the larger

of the illegal/informal migrant settlements. Scarcity thus promotes and upholds

‘informality’, and it is the informal and ‘unsettled’ status of home that serves best the

purposes of scarcity in the particular ‘setting’ of Khulna’s migrant settlements. Since

informality persistently seeks to become formal and thus scarcity prevails, this

negotiated form of relationship continues to remain an unrelenting process that

underlies all home-making efforts by the migrant.

6.3.2 Compromised boundary

Similar ‘neither-nor’ status of ownership may also manifest in migrants’ many acts

culminating into the ‘politics of in-between-ness’ and the ‘politics of infrastructure’

as discussed earlier in this chapter. Although these two have their influence on

migrants’ home-making, it is the ‘politics of control’ and its associated spatial

compromises and negotiations that actually translate into the way people satisfy their

everyday privacy needs and gain socio-economically at the level of migrant

dwellings. In addition, the constructed conditions of scarcity that base on a vulnerable

tenure status hence also hinder growth. The small size of plots and restriction on

building construction (e.g. height, construction of roof etc.) also restrict individuals to

grow socio-economically. This actual scarcity of space that originates from the

constructed condition of scarcity (of ownership) hence leads to an even more

constraining situation for this particular group of ex-rural people. Primarily due to

cultural reasons29

, these migrants who used to depend heavily on their home premise

29. Traditionally rural homesteads in agrarian Bangladesh used to provide essential

livelihood means and used to serve economic production (Ahmed 2006; Hakim and

Ahmed 2007; Hakim 2010) – required for every household’s sustenance. This somehow

resonates Stea (1995: 194-196)’s example of urban Mexico where the ‘newly urban’

population were lacking the necessary coping mechanisms to adjust to the modern ways

of life once they were suddenly exposed to it.

249

for fulfilling their livelihood- and privacy-needs, now find themselves severely

constrained by the lack of space and material resources. This is exactly where the

various spatial boundaries are redefined by people in their everyday territorial acts

while newer (and often multiple) meanings become associated with spaces and forms

found in these settlements. Not only are various spatial negotiations made within the

house interior spaces as privacy is profoundly compromised30

, secondary (public)

territories (e.g. neighbourhood streets and alleyways) are often used in ways as in

primary territories. What could be easily considered as acts of territorial

encroachment or invasion in typical middle-class neighbourhoods thus only appears

as simple every-day acts of negotiation over the public spaces in the realm of these

settlements. This sharing of public space for personal use, yet retaining a strong

mutual respect for each other’s use lead to a situation in which individual gain

becomes possible only when there is a simultaneous collective gain. A collective

control of a house-front alleyway, for instance, certainly ensures that every individual

living adjacent to that alleyway would also be able to claim a certain territory from it

during certain times in a day or night. Such maximization of public space usage is

essential in terms of both household and livelihood needs since available house-space

for satisfying both these purposes is always going to be inadequate for most

inhabitants.

In terms of home-making, these findings remain significant. First, the slippery31

nature (and meaning) associated with privacy practices substantiates Somerville

(1997: 234)’s initial claim that the “extent of being private is variable”. It equally

conforms to Altman (1975: 18)’s suggestion that the definition of privacy implies

selective control, where privacy (practices) assume different forms in response to

different circumstances over certain periods of time. In that, however, findings from

30. Although a strong urge for an orthodox level of privacy is stressed by migrants across

different regional origin and with different religious orientation.

250

Khulna’s migrant settlements impart the essential context, i.e. the idea of scarcity that

occurs from the migrants’ lack of ‘ownership’ of their dwelling environments – to

the initial concept of privacy practices (hence home-making) as in Somerville’s and

Altman’s rather acontextual and universal frameworks. Second, ‘politics of control’

and its associated spatial negotiations produce interesting “architectural patterns of

displacement” (Heynen and Loeckx 1994). In terms of post-displacement

consequence under modern (globalized) conditions, “new use of public as private”,

“juxtaposition of forms, habits and conventions in host environment”, “re-

codification of signs” and “creation of a closed system” become immediately evident

of the migrants’ spatial practices. One finds “ambivalent meanings” associated with

the architectural forms and spaces of migrant dwelling units and settlements, where

Bricolage (e.g. rural forms in the city) and Hybridity (Cairns 2003) often become

manifest. Dwelling units and settlements are used commonly as a stage, where they

become spaces and forms for mediation and negotiation while leading to the

formation of new social relations (Heynen and Loeckx 1994).

6.3.3 Re-construction of Samaj

The situated conditions of scarcity prioritize collectivism over individualism. So in

terms of identity formation, which is one of the three main pillars of Somerville

(1997)’s ‘home framework’, migrant population identify themselves not as

individuals but as constituent parts of a certain group residing in a certain location32

.

Shaped by the prevailing conditions of scarcity, home-making for individual migrants

therefore gains essential socio-economic-political impetus as part of a collective

31. “Slippage of meaning” has been used by Cairns (2003).

32. If any individual, for example, from Settlement 1 (Rupsha Char Bastee) is asked about

his/her identity and whereabouts, he/she would immediately recognize him/herself as

“Char er lok” and say “Char e thaki” – meaning he/she is one who is part of the Char

community and that is where he/she resides. When needed, this self-recognition with a

10,000 strong population group provides him/her with an immediate socio-political

benefit compared to any other ‘mainstream’ citizen albeit the former’s stay at that

government-owned land is ‘illegal’ according to official terms.

251

process, which would otherwise have not been possible through the migrant’s solitary

effort. Different territorial acts also come coupled with added social gains, which

subsequently go on to produce conditions that help home-making. What at first

appears as acts of encroachment (e.g. street vending or footpath-shops) due mainly to

a lack of business space, eventually end up being proven as sources of constant social

surveillance and security for the whole community. Such sense of security, Rapoport

(1995: 30) writes, helps acquire psychological and social meanings, which turns these

spaces into homes by establishing particular relationships between people and these

particular settings. Such findings further advance Somerville (1997: 235)’s

hypothesis that “Identity of a human being as an autonomous individual is bound up

with his membership of a body of citizens who all own property according to the

same set of rules and laws”. Once again, the scarce condition pertaining to ownership,

i.e. the particular unresolved and negotiated state of tenure and an actual lack of space

are what lead migrants to adopt this particular ‘collective’ manipulation of a number

of territorial thresholds for their identity formation. It is also through this adoption to

specific space-making traits that a sense of security is established, communities are

formed and eventually home is made in an ever evolving and relative form (Heynen

and Loeckx 1994).

Scarcity of space thus contributes to the particular way in which a new Samaj (sense

of identity as part of a community) is being re-created amongst the typically super-

dense migrant settlements. As contextual notions such as ‘becoming a Bariwala’ (as

in Section 5.3.2.1) aspires migrants to own a house in the city, it is the migrants’

many manipulations and compromises with the spatial boundaries of home that

culminates incrementally to an eventual (in all possibility informal/illegal) ownership

of a dwelling unit. With time, more partitions are made or a whole new floor may be

added to create new rooms for familial use or for income generation. This is how

settlement density keeps increasing while in many such cases, this increased density

252

keeps contributing in a positive manner by giving rise to everyday socio-spatial

encounters amongst heterogeneous population groups in their sharing of the same

public space. A common ownership over public space by the concerned community

thus converge the community’s interest on to a single issue. On the other hand, the

sets of spatio-physical constraints, such as unresolved ownership status of land,

building restrictions and lack of material/financial means to carry out newer

construction lead to the assumption of alternative spatio-physical practices (e.g.

incrementality, adaptability, sharing of common functions etc.) at dwelling-

neighbourhood levels of migrant settlements. These acts of collective

territorialization that span across a certain period of time again create a sense of

belonging and attachment to the environment that migrants create with their own

efforts and using their own resources. Familiarity, the third pillar of Somerville

(1997)’s home framework thus is attained by maintaining (both individual and

collective) identity through “continuity and stability of experience” (Ibid: 235).

Although it is said that success in creating such domestic familiarity requires

economic resources and legal possession rights to support and manage a household

(Ibid: 236), in Khulna’s migrant settlements, the scarcity of both economic resources

and possession rights to land are compensated by collective use of space and

resources and collective socio-political negotiations respectively33

. All these conform

to Ghafur (2004: 268)’s assertion that in Bangladeshi context, the concept of home in

the traditional sense becomes meaningful only when it is viewed as an integral part of

the Samaj. The various conditions of scarcity hence also influence the re-creation of

Samaj as found in the studied settlements in Khulna, and hence aids home-making by

providing the latter a desired grounding.

In addition, examples of various spatio-physical compromises such as the ‘politics of

control’ demonstrate that if scopes for physical growth is constrained, there is still

33. These have been discussed elaborately in Chapter 5 and earlier sections of this chapter.

253

Figure 6.9: The home-scarcity framework.

room for economic and social gain by making adjustments to the existing spatial

boundaries of home. On the other hand, the ‘politics of infrastructure’ or the

development of a ‘social interface’ at the settlement-outside world boundary reveal

that room for socio-economic gain also exists on the higher level of settlements even

if social and spatial scarcity prevails. All these socio-spatial acts however attempt to

ground the ‘migrant Samaj’ into the larger Samaj outside the settlement (i.e. urban

mainstream socio-economic-political context). Migrant populations, through these

acts, hence aim to identify themselves as part of the mainstream citizenry.

6.3.4 The Home-Scarcity framework

The discussion on “urbanism of negotiations” in Section 6.2.4 also helps understand

the association between home-making and scarcity further. Thus the situated

territorial practices as in Chapter 5 can be viewed as socio-spatial negotiations that

came out as a response to

particular scarce conditions

prevailing in Khulna’s migrant

settlements. Figure 6.9 shows

how the situated conditions of

scarcity potentially deserve a

place in the initial conceptual

framework from Chapter 2.

The inclusion of Scarcity,

which affects the various

territorial practices and

mechanisms, and hence the

way spatial boundaries are

controlled (and allowed

254

externals to control) by the migrants at the many different levels of their settlements,

influence the latter’s privacy practices. And it is the desire for privacy that according

to prior definitions is the primary goal of all spatial control mechanisms. In view of

this, it is only through such control over one’s spatial environment, identity is formed

for ‘anonymous’ migrants and their home is made.

6.4 Conclusion

In Khulna, migrants’ home-making and the associated socio-spatial processes ‘prior

to’ migration, ‘during’ migration and ‘following’ migration – may all be viewed as

responses to the many real and constructed conditions of scarcity in a context

characterized by the different challenges posed by modernity. Particularly in their

post-migration phase in Khulna, evident ‘lacks’ and ‘deficiencies’ such as lack of

resources, lack of legality (e.g. illegal status of tenure) or lack of formal recognition

(e.g. informal economic activities and building) thus have been worked out by the

migrants to remake themselves a home. The socio-spatial negotiations for controlling

territorial boundaries therefore come only as a realistic outcome to many constructed

conditions of land/housing/resource shortages. These conditions made various actors

to assume different paths of negotiation and compromises. The discussion on

‘mechanisms’ against this particular backdrop hence imparts a deeper understanding

of home-making in Khulna settlements over the ones with no context or in different

contexts.

On the other hand, for a better understanding of the concept of scarcity (e.g.

particularly the way land shortage is defined/maintained by Governments and other

authorities particularly during post-WWII decades), examples from Khulna

settlements show that issues pertaining to land scarcity can alternatively be resolved

by particular social mechanisms that the ‘social construction of home’ framework

helps identify. For example, without understanding how in response to spatial

255

scarcity, the issues of household privacy are compromised and compensated with

greater social gains, the concept of scarcity also sounds vague and acontextual. The

‘socially focused’ home framework in this case certainly helps since the generalized

description of scarcity tells least “about what exactly scarcity means, who creates it,

who it affects most, and who benefits from this state of scarcity” (Southerton 2011:

1249). These descriptions that occur from the discussions on home also tell about

how such scarcities are mediated and neutralized using the premise of home and with

what socio-spatial outcome. These findings also resonate with Jeremy Till (2011: 5)

claim that “a scarcity of stuff” may not necessarily be dealt with the provision of

more “stuff” because “stuff” is “neutral” and hence is made to work in the ways the

actors want them to work. The lack of food or hunger, he says, is not best provided by

food aid only. Doing that should essentially overlook the real causes such as

“inequitable distribution, poverty and other inequalities”. In the field of the built

environment, Jeremy Till criticizes, that scarcity is mostly associated with stuff and

the reaction is limited to “material and technical fixes”, rather than understanding

“stuff” in its social context (Ibid: 7). Similarly, the concept of scarcity, only after

being reviewed against a particular context as Khulna is, demonstrates how “room for

bargain” is left open by the powerful elites, while the same “room for bargain” is

used by the grassroots migrant for a sustained stay, and hence make home in the city.

The pairing of the concept of scarcity with the concept of home therefore aids a

further understanding of this social setting under a particular context. It shows how

the scarcities of space at both household and community levels are compensated by

accepted re-definitions of, and culturally approved negotiations and compromises

with territorial boundaries. Physical spaces and forms here are routinely allowed to

transform at various levels of home by complex social mechanisms involving the

migrants and other often elitist actors in and out of the settlements. Spatial (and

physical) is made to work inseparably with the social. A lack of ‘stuff’ (space and

256

space-making resources) is often dealt not with form but rather through a process

where “neutral form” is viewed equally as a tool, a stage and an outcome of the

process. Scarcity and home thus complement each other both socially and spatially

and make sense of the context where home is being made. Buchli (2002: 210-211)

commented on Soviet society that Home is the sphere of the daily life and the arena in

which fundamental restructuring of Soviet society were materialized. Clinging to this

same note, while drawing contextual examples it can be argued that Scarcity, both

actual and constructed, remains a negotiable concept. The premise of migrant’s home

in Khulna at its many different levels remains the exclusive arena where socio-spatial

strategies for boundary control symbolize the acts of negotiation that migrants have

been using for dealing with the historical conditions of Scarcity.

6.5 Scopes for further work

As developed and proposed by this research, a further testing of the hypotheses (and

the framework) may also be carried out in other ‘third world’ contexts to check their

validity against these particular socio-spatial settings. It is believed, there are also

other key areas where further contributions can be made considering them as

continuation of this research. These areas are highlighted below.

- This framework can be tested in the context of other Bangladeshi cities

and may be in the context of other developing nations. The idea would be

to observe how the different land prices may possibly affect the type of

social relations and its spatio-physical outcomes as observed in Khulna.

Cities where land price is much higher than Khulna, for example in

Dhaka, a negative effect of land price on social relations and forms of

such migrant settlements is expected. Probably this is why both eviction

threats and rates in Dhaka are much higher than in Khulna. This is also

probably for the same reason, even within the studied settlements in

257

Khulna, settlement 1 (Rupsha Char) faces the most eviction threats. For

being located on a potentially prime location for new shrimp industries

or expanding the existing ones, this settlement territory remains the most

contested amongst all those studied. City size and hence land price is

thus expected to influence the type of social relation and hence to the

spatio-territorial practices. Similar correlations may be tested in Khulna

context – with regard to settlement scale and practiced types of

negotiations (considering the number of voters, and hence received

political attention).

- Studies similar to this present research have the scope to focus more on

the issues of migrancy in relation to architecture, and hence contribute to

the ‘less tested’ architectural frameworks/conceptual models such as

“Architectural pattern of displacement” by Heynen and Loeckx (1994) or

“Drifting” by Stephen Cairns (2003). Focusing on ordinary migrant

spaces and forms and finding out their implication on these rather

theoretical premises would certainly provide ample insight and

knowledge toward a better understanding of our present world

characterized by various forms of mobilities.

- As in mainstream studies carried out in middle- or higher-class

neighbourhoods and using concepts such as New Urbanism, studies can

be dedicated to understand the density (and height) structure of these

low-income settlements. A ‘social threshold test’ can be conducted to

understand the optimal level of perceived density (threshold between

density and crowding) even amongst the present accepted level of super-

density. In a world whose major share of housing future lies in similar

258

low-income settlement systems, socio-demographic indicators generated

though such studies should help all sorts of ‘planning’ activities.

- Purely qualitative studies as this present research must be complemented

with more quantitative studies, for example, using city-level mapping

and modelling of all low-income settlements (e.g. GIS). These statistical

studies should certainly complement the qualitative findings by

providing additional quantitative data and settlement-level growth

models for a much better understanding/grounding of the threads and

themes that have already been outlined. Additional in-depth drawings

(similar to those prepared and used already in this research) can be

prepared and used for facilitating more generalized

statements/hypotheses.

- There may be other forms of rural-urban migration that are now on the

increase particularly in cities like Khulna (such as Circular or Seasonal

Migration, or temporary Climate Refugees). Socio-spatial implications of

these emerging forms of migration (with different economic status) and

the possible patterns of negotiations involved may also be an interesting

prospect for further research. In addition, there are numerous

unaccounted cases of middle-class and higher-middle class rural-urban

migration that are taking place in cities like Khulna. Their socio-

economic implications on urban spatio-physical environment may also

be another useful topic for further research.

- A research focusing on the concept of Social Network Analysis can be

carried out to investigate their implication on the production of migrant

spaces.

259

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275

Appendix

1. Table1: The evolution of urban and rural population, the world and major

regions, 1950-2050; source UN (2008: 7)

2. Form 1 (overleaf): Questionnaire for household survey; pilot survey phase 1

(2011)

276

Negotiation and Form of Urban Migrant Homes Questionnaire for household survey, Khulna, Bangladesh Research team no.____; Interviewers________________________________

This questionnaire is part of an academic work, which aims at gaining comprehensive

understanding of the livelihoods of families who migrated to Khulna city from

_______________________________________________ and are now living at

______________. The interviewer assures that the respondent will be kept anonymous, and

the results will be used solely for the purposes of this academic research. Thank you for your

cooperation.

A. What are the spatio-physical transformations that have taken place at the level of

low-income migrant dwellings (and settlements) in Khulna during ISI and SAP

respectively?

- Referring back to the possible roles played by elitist agencies, transformations to the

dwelling units (and settlements) will be graphically illustrated in terms of: Ownership of

land and dwelling units (type of ownership, history); Use of space (indoor and outdoor –

alteration and control); Building mass (addition and subtraction, and control); System of

threshold and boundary (physical); Construction technique and material (permanent,

semi-permanent or non-permanent); and Services, infrastructure and utilities

(provisioning and delivery)

B. How this spatio-physical transformation of the dwelling/settlement may have been

influenced by changes to the socio-political relation between the tenant-migrant and

the elite (including the landowner) throughout ISI and SAP?

‒ Changes in social relation in accordance with spatio-physical transformation will be

measured in terms of: Type of elitist agency affecting change (politician – local and

national, NGO/CBO, public sector personnel); Type of interaction (compromising or

conflicting); Nature of interaction (mutually benefitting and/or exploitative); Type of

negotiation (Master-servant or Patron-client); and Community’s decision-making

(structure, hierarchy of leadership)

Tenure - right to hold property (land and/or house)

Nature of Tenure

1. What are the different land-tenure types which this migrant household held during its

stay in Khulna?

Tenure Types of Land

1 Type of agency

involved

2 Decision-

making level

3

Nature of interaction

(contribution &

pay-back)

4 Type of

Basic information Description

Date of interview

Duration From To

Name of respondent

Sex of respondent (M/F) Male Female

Village address of origin

Duration of stay in Khulna till date

Religious affiliation

Present address

277

Influence

Timeline

2. What were the reasons behind choosing different types of tenure during different phases? N

Reasons 1 Financial Gains

2 Closer to

Workplace

3 Change of occupation

4 Presence of Kin

(friend, relative)

5 Benefit of living close to an Elite

6 Forced Eviction

7 Voluntary

Relocation

Timeline

3. Which persons and/or organizations provide for and/or maintain infrastructure and utility

issues? N Indicators Infrastructure (road, drainage etc.) Utilities (water, electricity etc.)

1 Type of Agency

2 Decision-

Making Level

3

Nature of

Interaction

(contribution & pay-back)

4 Type of

Influence

Timeline

4. What sorts of public service/utility bills are paid regularly? Water (W); electricity (E); telephone (T); garbage collection/sewerage (G)

Services & utilities

whose bills are paid regularly (use codes)

Agencies to whom

bills are addressed

Timeline

5. Is it needed for you to pay any property or holding tax or any other tax? What sorts are

paid? To whom? Codes: land tax (H); building tax (B); informal tax (e.g. bribe - B)

Taxes (use codes) Agencies to whom

bills are addressed or

taxes given to

Timeline

6. Any memorable event of resentment and/or conflict regarding tenure of land/house? Please use recording device to record conversation

Tenure History 7. In which phase of industrialization a land title or a sense of ownership was acquired? Any

special help needed while transitioning from non-permanent to present status of tenure?

What is the form of return by the migrants in response to this help from the elite with

regard to tenure-disputes or tenure-settlements? Codes: purchased ownership (P); lease (L); other informal arrangement (I)

Timeline

Form of ‘permanent’ ownership

Agency involved in

helping transition

Form of return

278

8. Is there any religious bylaw in practice (e.g. Muslim) that influence tenure? Descriptions/indicators

Detail of bylaw Religious Agencies

concerned (individuals,

NGO, institutions etc.)

Timeline 1 2 3

Sense of Ownership

Control

9. Social relation with which powerful class helped retain tenure status of land and building?

Q.1 10. Is there any particular community decision-making body that affects building or other

physical construction and transformation? What sort of role does it play?

N

Members of

body

Roles/Functions

Names & details of Community decision-making body affecting

construction

1 Protects interest of members (e.g. against KDA, NHA etc.)

2 Lobbies and negotiates for

infrastructure upgrade or repair

3 Manages funds for community- level construction or modification

4 Approves outdoor space usage

5 Approves new construction

6 Approves in-house modification

7 Approves outdoor modification

8 Takes decisions on non-

residence buildings

9 Arbitrates disputes regarding property (land or house)

10 Facilitates household entrepreneurship

11. Who are the five most important persons and organizations within and outside the

settlement? Describe the situation during which their helps/assistances/influences are

required most? Timeline Persons & Organizations within settlement Persons & Organizations outside settlement

12. Who does the community (leader) resort to when disputes cannot be settled internally? Elitist agency

Central

Govt.

(CG)

Local

Govt.

(LG)

NGO Dono

r

(D)

Formal

private sector

(FP)

Informal

private sector

(I-P)

Local

Politician

(P)

Urban

Affluent

(A)

Religious

Institutions

(R)

Communi

ty leader

(CL)

Personalization 13. What is the tenure (and ownership) status of present permanent building(s) and other

construction(s)? N Indicators Put tick mark (√)

1 Owned (by purchase)

2 Co-owned (by purchase)

3 Rented

4 Squatted (arrangements made)

5 Squatted (no arrangement)

14. Whose approval is needed (within/outside settlement) for outdoor space/building

usage/alterations? Does house modifications require out-house authorization? Q.10

15. What is the average amount of money spent on housing annually (i.e. house rent,

maintenance expenses, utility bills, services, taxes etc.)? What percentage it represents

when compared against the total income? Q.19

279

N Indicators Paid to Yearly expenditure in BDT1

1 House rent

2 Maintenance expenditure

3 Utility bills

4 Service bills

5 Property taxes

6 Informal fees, bribes, gifts

Other

Total

16. Who gives labour for upgrading or maintaining the house? N Indicators Put tick mark (√)

1 Self (family members)

2 Members of the extended family

3 Community members and neighbours

4 Hired professionals

5 Government or other formal agencies

6 NGO and/or Donor

Other

17. What non-monetary resources (material or non-material) are used for house construction

and maintenance? N Indicators Put tick mark (√)

1 Collected (& used) building materials

2 Donated building materials

3 Materials purchased in credit

4 Friends & family labour for construction

5 NGO’s or other’s technical advice

6 Creditor (Elite)’s advices

Other

Access to Resources

Access to Income 18. What are the sources of income for the household at the present time?

N Sources Contribution by Amount in BDT

1 Wages/salaries

2 Own business

3 Pension

4 Social assistance/donation

5 Casual/part-time work

6 Day-labour

7 Contribution from other

members (esp. wife)

8 Contribution from children

9 Remittances

10 Income from rent

11 Raised poultry/livestock

11 Urban agriculture

12 Supplements from rural household/land

Other

Total

19. Who are the elitist agencies that contributed to income generation and resource

accumulation in the past? N Indicators Elitist agency influencing income generation during different timelines

1 Type of Agency

involved

2 Decision-Making Level

3

Nature of

Interaction (assistance)

4

Type of

Interaction (assistance)

Timeline

1. Bangladesh Taka; Conversion rate 1 USD = 75 BDT as in September 2011

280

20. Do households receive any kind of donation that helps their basic housing needs (e.g.

purchasing of or accessing to land, house, utilities, infrastructure etc.)? Elitist agency

Central

Govt.

(CG)

Local

Govt.

(LG)

NGO Dono

r

(D)

Formal

private sector

(FP)

Informal

private sector

(I-P)

Local

Politician

(P)

Urban

Affluent

(A)

Religious

Institutions

(R)

Communi

ty leader

(CL)

Access to Credit 21. In which situation one has to borrow? Which amongst the elitist agencies you borrow

regularly? In which (material and intangible) forms fiscal borrowings are paid back?

Which amongst the agencies provide formal fiscal borrowing (that requires written

documentations)? Which of agencies offer informal borrowing (no documentation

needed)? Can building materials be purchased in credit? N Indicators Situations, lending Elitist agency and forms of pay-back

1

Situations/

sectors of

borrowing

2

Type of

Agency

involved

Formal

Informal

3 Decision-Making

Level

4

Nature of Interaction

(lending)

5 Type of Interaction (lending)

6 Forms of ‘Pay-

back’

Timeline

22. Does religion play any particular role to facilitate access to credit? Indicators Roles of religion

Purposes for borrowing Lending Religious

Agencies (individuals,

NGO, institutions etc.), & their name/titles

Healthcare & Education 23. How is hospital admission managed during an emergency? How are monthly medical

expenses paid for? How are children’s educational expenses (e.g. examination fees) paid

for? What role religion (and religious institutions) plays to facilitate healthcare and

education? N Indicators Situations and assisting Elitist agency

1 Situations/

sectors of assistance

2 Type of Agency involved

3 Decision-Making

Level

4

Nature of Interaction

(assistance & pay-

back story)

5 Type of Interaction

Timeline

Boundary & Threshold

Boundary and Threshold: Dwelling Level (drawings, maps or diagrams to complement each

answer)

24. How the notion of ‘private’ is manifested at the house-settlement interface? What sort of

household (domestic) activities are performed outside the household and at the level of

the streets and in similar public spaces? PHOTO

281

Private activities as performed at the level of ‘public’

Bathing

or

Toilets

Cooking Resting or

sleeping

Meeting

guest

Holding

family

events

Children

playing

Cottage

industry

Parking Dispute

resolution

25. Is there any functional and/or spatial relation between any elite houses/properties and

migrants’ dwelling? N Functional/Spatial relation √

1 Sharing of common function (e.g. toilet, bathroom, kitchen etc.) with adjacent elite households

2 Borrowing of item (e.g. food, money etc.) from adjacent elite household

3 Usage of ‘elite’ (or landlord’s) space for own purpose (e.g. agriculture or poultry)

4 Proximity to elite benefitting income generation

5 Proximity to elite providing other social benefit (e.g. sense of security etc.)

26. What functional and/or physical transformation of the house affects street fabric? N Functional/physical transformation of house that affects street fabric √

1 Change of building material (e.g. permanent construction)

2 Change in construction technique (e.g. traditional to modern)

3 Modified layout

4 Addition of income generating functions (e.g. roadside shops, small/cottage industries etc.)

5 Addition of non-income generating functions (e.g. extension or additional use of existing building and spaces)

27. What social functions occur at the physical interface of houses and larger settlements?

DRAWING Social function at the physical interface

Meeting and gathering through the usage of public functions (e.g. shops)

Usage and sharing of common public space (e.g. street or open

space for water collection)

Personal usage for household reasons

Boundary and Threshold: Settlement Level 28. What is the geographic location of the concerned settlement at the level of Khulna map?

MAP 29. What are the functional properties (of land use) of this present settlement? What are the

functional properties surrounding this settlement? DRAWING, MAP & PHOTO

N Types of land use Within settlement

(√)

Surrounding

settlement (√)

1 Informal residential

2 Formal residential

3 Mixed use (residential cum income generating activities)

4 Informal trade and commerce

5 Formal sector industry

6 Formal sector business and commerce

7 Agriculture

8 Rural-urban fringe

9 Derelict land/property (private-owned)

10 Derelict land/property (government-owned)

11 Rivers or natural waterways

Other

30. What social function occurs at the physical interface of the settlement and the city

outside? DRAWING, MAP & PHOTO Social function at the physical interface

Meeting and gathering

(e.g. shops, markets)

Shared common public space

(e.g. street or location for water

collection)

Barren

walls

Income generating

activities of migrant-

residents

Patronizing

elite’s

domicile

Spatial Layout and Usage: Personalization (through alteration and transformation)

31. What are the indoor usages of space beside regular living functions? In which ways the

physical house (and its spaces) benefit income generation? DRAWING & PHOTO N Other use of space Put tick mark (√)

1 Cottage industry and handicrafts

2 Selling of commodities/Shops

3 Commercial storage

4 Community’s informal usage (gathering, meeting, mourning etc.)

282

5 Community’s formal usage (school, clinic etc.)

6 Religious gatherings

32. Who are the consumers and other beneficiaries of the (social and/or material) products

produced in the house? N Consumers & beneficiaries Timeline (√)

1 Ordinary local-level residents

2 Local elitist residents

3 City-level consumers

4 National-level consumers

5 International consumers

Timeline

33. What social and/or economic circumstances led to this certain other usage (and alteration)

of domestic space? N Circumstances Timeline (√)

1 Sudden fall of income level

2 Loss of job or occupation

3 Add to present income

4 Enlargement of family (marriage)

5 Uplift social status/image

6 External influence (e.g. NGO)

Timeline

34. Which space of the house has been subject to alteration? DRAWING & PHOTO Spaces of house subject to alteration

Verandah Living Sleeping Eating & Kitchen Outdoor/courtyard Roof Toilet

35. What sort of alteration has taken place? When were these various alterations carried out

(do these changes signify or coincide with any particular phase of rise or decline of the

industries)? Was there a facilitator required or involved in each phase of alteration? In

what particular situation his/her/its involvement was required? What was his/her/its

particular form of contribution? What form of relation migrant retain with the

contributing individual and/or organization? DRAWING & PHOTO N Indicators Situations and assisting Elitist agency

1 Forms of alteration

and/or modification

2 Type of Agency

involved

3 Decision-Making Level

4

Nature of

Interaction (take note of

situation)

5 Type of Interaction

Timeline

36. What is the proportion of alteration compared to total area prior to each addition?

DRAWING Percentage of alteration

Extent of alteration in sq. feet

Built Form: Personalization (through alteration and transformation)

37. What are the various phases of construction evident in the built form of the house? Which

portion of the house form has been subject to construction and alteration? What are the

evidences of personalization at the different levels (plinth, wall and roof) of house form?

DRAWING & PHOTO Indicators Describe or put tick mark (√) as needed

Portion of house form subject

to alteration Plinth Wall Roof

Evidence of personalization

Type of elite’s contribution

Type of Agency involved

Decision-Making Level

283

Nature of Interaction (take note of situation/event)

Type of Interaction Timeline

38. What particular functional, social or cultural needs the different add-ons signify?

DRAWING & PHOTO

39. How do the alterations (e.g. change of functional usage, addition of rentable units,

enhanced density etc.) affect the built fabric of the larger settlement the house is part of?

DRAWING & PHOTO

Services & Utilities: Provision, Accessibility, Delivery (FGD) 40. In which areas of settlement water taps, public toilets and baths are located? DRAWING

& PHOTO

41. Who takes decisions on the locations of these public functions? N Indicators Situations and concerned elitist agency

1 Decision-making on

locations

2 Type of agency

involved

3 Decision-making Level

4

Nature of

interaction (take note of elite’s

contribution & pay-

back situation)

5 Type of interaction

Timeline

42. What is the provision of water? Who constructs and maintains the sewage drain? Who

pays for the toilet and bathroom maintenance? Who collects garbage? N Indicators Situations and concerned elitist agency

1 Decision-making on

public services

2 Type of agency

involved

3 Decision-making Level

4

Nature of

interaction (take note of elite’s

contribution & pay-

back situation)

5 Type of interaction

Timeline

43. Who constructs/maintains the road adjacent to property?

Gendered Space and Influences 44. In which household spaces the female spends their time in a day? DRAWING &

PHOTO 45. What are the spaces outside the house that the female visits in a typical day? DRAWING

& PHOTO

46. How do these affect spatial & formal transformation of houses & settlements? DRAWING

& PHOTO

3. Form 2 (overleaf): Household data collection framework; field-work phase 2

(2012)

284

Sub-question 1: On form and space

a. Who uses which part of the physical units of home for what purpose, and

under what condition?

Sub-question 2: On control

b. How does the migrant exercise control over the spatio-physical boundaries of

the home’s many ‘parts & configurations’?

Variables How is ‘everyday’ privacy

practiced?

What sorts of compromises

(spatial and social) are made to

realize what benefit?

In which way a sense of

‘territorial control’ is

maintained?

How does property

ownership manifest

in the practiced

control over various

spaces?

Levels Indicators

Variables What functional

preferences

explain the

space-making

practices and the

resulting layout

of rooms &

spaces?

How do the

values and

ideals of a

‘good

environment’

manifest in the

layout?*

What specific

qualities are

mostly valued?

What are the

more significant

‘changeable’

elements

compared to the

‘core’ elements?

What explains

the changed

against the

unchanging?

How does

dwelling

function

correlate the

functions of

other higher

level units?

How do they

influence each

other?

What are

the

contextual

definitions

of space

categories

that signify

property

ownership

& control?

Levels Indicators

Rooms &

partitioned

space

House

Street-

settlement

Use of space:

- Front-back

- Specialized-

multiple-dual

- Sacred-profane

- Clean-dirty

- Served-service

- Plan-non plan

Priority

functions

Important

possessions

Latent needs

Formal-

functional

incongruence

Notion of

ownership

Spatial

organization of

functional

needs

Formal

expression

Privacy

practices

Group

membership

Environmental

preferences:

- Climate

- Lighting

Construction

techniques &

materials

Partitioning &

segmentation

Economic

production

Building

material &

structure

Absorption

Conventions &

style

Built form in

horizontal &

vertical

Sites with

‘everyday

significance’:

- Income

producing

- Service &

utility

provisioning

- Religiously

significant

- Educational &

other

institutional

- Supplies

- Recreational

Ghar-Bari-

Basha

Bariwala

Gram-

Shohor

285

Rooms &

partitioned

space

House

Street-

settlement

Rules & zones:

- Male-female

- Insider-outsider

- Owner-member

- Master-servant

- Landlord-tenant

Partitioning

Time management

Common control as a larger unit

Socially permitted level of:

- Functional overlaps

- Accessibility

Appropriation of space:

- Individual & group

levels

- Right-based practice

Personalization:

- Fixed objects

- Moveable objects

- Symbols & signs

Surveillance:

- Eyes on the streets

- Habitual practices

Levels of

transformation

Sub-question 3: On actors and agents

c. Which other agencies also share control of boundaries?

d. What are the perceived benefits from controlling

Variables What socio-economic-political forces brought

about the spatio-physical transformation?

How did they influence

transformation?

Levels Indicators

Rooms &

partitioned

space

House

Street-

settlement

Demographic variables:

- Race, regional identity, gender, institutional affiliation, socio-economic status

within community

Decision making process:

- Structure, hierarchy of leadership

Role played by decision makers:

- Kinship network, KDA, KCC, migrant elite, religious bodies, NGO, donors,

elected public representative, businessman, political figures

Nature of interaction

4. Table 2: List of Interviewed migrant households2 (family heads): field-

work 2011

Settlements

(local

names)

Interviewee’s list

(local names used)

Gender/

Religion

Address details

(local addresses used)

1 Rupsha Char Bastee

Tereja Biswas F/Chris End of Ranga Mia Goli

Hamida Parvin F/Musl Mosharef Goli

Hamida Begum

(Sattar’s mom)

F/Musl BRAC School Goli

Md Moksed Ali M/Musl Kashem Goli

Md Montaz Ali M/Musl Sat Bhai Goli

Md Afzal Hossain

Mridha

M/Musl Mosjid Goli

Amjad Ali M/Musl Kashem Goli

Jibon Babu M/Hind Nirmala Goli

2. Names and address details are provided with all interviewees’ kind consent

286

2 Rupsha Char

– private

Md Jala Gazi M/Musl 2 No. Custom Ghat, United Saw Mill,

C/O Quaium Shaheb

Parvin F/Musl 2 No. Custom Ghat, Rajon Shaheb er Gola

Shahida Begum F/Musl 2 No. Custom Ghat, Suja Shaheb er Gola

Runu Begum F/Musl WAPDA Veri Bund Road, Rafiq Shaheb er Gola

Md Chan Mia M/Musl WAPDA Veri Bund Road, Abdur Rahman Shaheb er Gola

Md Shah Jahan M/Musl Notun Bazar, Bablu Mollar Gola

Md Elahi Boks M/Musl WAPDA Veri Bund Road, Rafiq Shaheb er Gola

Waresh Sardar M/Musl WAPDA Veri Bund Road, Rafiq Shaheb er Gola

3 5 No. Ghat

Parvin F/Musl Near Kabarkhana Mosque, CDC Netri

Rehana Begum F/Musl

Shahida Begum F/Musl Near main Mosque

Subhas Chandra Shawjal M/Hind

Mr Mansur Sardar M/Musl

Mohan Sardar M/Musl

Md Anwar Hossain

Patwari

M/Musl

Aklima Begum F/Musl

4 Ranar Math

Rokeya F/Musl Purba Banik Para, Ranar Math, Community Center

Md Ismail Khan M/Musl Road no. 3

Md Sultan Khan M/Musl Road no. 2

Fatema F/Musl Road no. 1

Shamsul Haq M/Musl Road no. 1

Siddique Molla M/Musl Road no. 3

Kader Sardar M/Musl Road no. 2

Monwara Begum F/Musl Road no. 2

5 Dakshin

Tootpara,

Motiakhali

Momtaz Begum F/Musl Taltala Hospital Road, Holding No. 77

Ashish Babu M/Chris Dakshin Tootpara Christian Para

Tohmina Begum F/Musl Christian Para (On the other end of Bridge)

Shahida F/Musl Baitul Aman Moholla

Amena Begum F/Musl Monsur Khan Sarak, Dakshin Tootpara

Sheikh Ali Akbar M/Musl Baitul Aman Moholla

Md Jomir Hossain M/Musl Dakshin Tootpara Christian Para

Rustam Ali M/Musl Dakshin Tootpara

6 Vastuhara

Siddiqur Rahman M/Musl Road 4, House 211

Abdul Mannan Sharif M/Musl Road 1, House 2

Syed Shamsuzzaman M/Musl Road 3, House 142

Merezan Begum F/Musl Muktijoddha Colony

Chan Boru F/Hind Road 1, House 7

Abdul Mannan M/Musl Road 2, House 36

Asya Khatun F/Musl Road 11

Anwarul Islam M/Musl Road 1, Muktijoddha Colony

Hasina Banu F/Musl Muktijoddha Colony

Mohammad Ali Sheikh M/Musl Road 3, House 59, Semi-pucca Colony

7 Khalishpur 7 No. Camp

Nasir Uddin M/Musl

Ishak M/Musl

Asma Begum F/Musl CDC Netri

Jubaida F/Musl

Nurjahan F/Musl

Jainul Abedin M/Musl

Zumrati F/Musl

5. Table 3: List of Interviewed migrant households3 (family heads): field-

work 2012

Settlements

(local

names)

Interviewee’s list Gender/

Religion

Address details

1 Rupsha Char

Bastee

Tereja Biswas F/Chris End of Ranga Mia Goli

Hamida Parvin F/Musl Mosharef Goli

3. Names and address details are provided with all interviewees’ kind consent

287

Mansura Begum F/Musl Sattar Boro Mia’s Goli

Md Afzal Hossain

Mridha

M/Musl Mosjid Goli

Jibon Babu M/Hind Nirmala Goli

2 Rupsha Char

– private

Md Abdul Khaleque

Gazi

M/Musl WAPDA Veri Bund Road, Rafiq Saheb er Gola

Shahida Begum F/Musl 2 No. Custom Ghat, Suja Shaheb er Gola

3 5 No. Ghat Abdul Malik Sardar M/Musl Baidda Para

Gol Banu alias ‘Hasan

er Ma’

F/Musl Panir Tank

Mira Rani Raut F/Hind Harijan Para

Shahida Khatun F/Musl Near main Mosque, CDC leader

4 Ranar Math Israil Chunnu M/Musl Road 1

Lutfor Hossain

Haolader

M/Musl Road 3

Abdul Kader Haolader

alias ‘Sardar’

M/Musl Road 2

Md Sultan Khan M/Musl Road 2

5 Dakshin

Tootpara,

Motiakhali

Md Ziarul M/Musl Baitul Aman Moholla

Momtaz Begum F/Musl Near Catholic Church

Shamsunnahar Begum F/Musl Bridge Road

Ashish Babu M/Chris Dakshin Tootpara Christian Para

6 Vastuhara Mohammad Ali Sharif M/Musl Road 1, House 2

Merezan Begum F/Musl Muktijoddha Colony

Md Alauddin alias

‘Dulal’

M/Musl Road 4, House 1

Sufia Khatun F/Musl Road 7, House 11

Munira Motizan F/Musl Road 1, House 7 (AL leader)

7 Khalishpur 7

No. Camp

Md Shamsu M/Musl Corner of Pond

Nurjahan Begum F/Musl Mosque trust land

Nurjahan F/Musl Pond side

Asma Khatun F/Musl CDC Netri

8 Bakkar

Bastee

Bakkar Jomaddar M/Musl Pond side

Md Mazhar Hossain Azad

M/Musl Pond side

Rahima Khatun F/Musl Housing Bazar Road, Khalishpur

9 People’s

Pachtala

Shampa Akter F/Musl Beside People’s Jute Mills bachelor’s quarters,

Khalishpur

Md Anisur Rahman M/Musl People’s Jute Mills bachelor’s quarters, Khalishpur

10 Railway Guard’s

Colony

Md Bodiuzzaman Haolader

M/Musl Railway Guard’s Colony

6. Table 4: List of Interviewed key personnel: field-work 2012

Institution/designation (and

description)

Interviewee’s name Address details

1 KDA (Khulna Development Authority) Mujibur Rahman Chief Planning Officer, KDA

2 General Secretary, Khulna City BNP

(Bangladesh Nationalist Party) – one of

the major patrons of Rupsha Char

Bastee

Shafiqul Alam Mona Munshipara 2nd Lane

3 UPPRP/Settlement Improvement

Assistant (SIA)

Toslima Khatun UPPRP (UNDP-KCC project working in

Khulna slums

4 Ex employee of Crescent Jute Mills

Ltd. – a senior resident of Khulna, and an ex-refugee from Kolkata during

1947 riot

Habibur Rahaman Farazipara Lane

5 Owner, Chhobi Fish Industries Ltd. – a

patron of Rupsha Bastee

Bikki Kazi WAPDA Veri Bund Road, Notun Bazar

6 Ex-Professor of History

Author: Metropolitan Khulna – In

Light of History (trans.)

Sheikh Ghaus Miah Sheikh Para Lane

288

7. Table 5: Reconnaissance field-survey schedule (07.12.2009 to 08.01.2010)

Key Issues

07.12.09-

11.12.09

14.12.09-

18.12.09

21.12.09-

25.12.09

28.12.09-

01.01.10

04.01.10-

08.01.10

Broad areas to

cover weekly

Daily schedule

regarding core tasks

Site

selection

and

discussions

with co-

researchers

Site visit

and

individual

household

survey

Site visit

and

individual

household

survey

Key

informant

interview

(planning

background)

Data

compilation

and feedback

Selection of

migrant-

settlements

H

oli

day

Ho

liday

Tra

vel

bac

k t

o S

ing

apo

re

Testing/adjusting questionnaire/sch

edule

Discussions with

research assistant(s)

Survey

(settlement morphology)

Survey

(individual

households)

Key informant interview

(planning

authority)

Key informant

interview

(professional planner)

Data

documentation

Feedback (from

research assistant)

Secondary data

collection

(documents/literature)

289

8. Table 6: Pilot field-survey schedule (07.02.2011 to 21.04.2011)

Key issues

07.02.11-

14.02.11

15.02.11-

14.03.11

15.03.11-

25.03.11

28.03.11-

14.04.11

15.04.11-

21.04.11

Broad areas to cover

weekly

Daily schedule

regarding core tasks

Development

of initial

questions

and

hypotheses

Amendment

to previous

research

proposal

Revision of

amended

proposal and

finalization

Field visit to

migrant

settlements

in case study

area

Data

compilation

and

travelling

back

Selection of

migrant-settlements

H

oli

day

Ho

liday

Tra

vel

bac

k t

o S

ing

apo

re

Testing/adjusti

ng

questionnaire/schedule

Discussions

with research

assistant(s)

Survey (settlement

morphology)

Survey (individual

households)

Key informant

interview (planning

authority)

Key informant

interview (professional

planner)

Data documentation

Feedback

(from research

assistants)

Secondary data collection

(documents/lite

rature)

290

9. Table 7: Final field-work schedule 2011-2012

Month Week Tasks accomplished

September

2011

1+2 Visit UPPRP (UNDP project on poverty reduction) in Khulna

Meeting with NGOs working in Khulna’s low income settlements

Talk to Khulna University (and other local) researchers

Finalize selection of study settlements (at least 7 types) and prepare

preliminary database on each type

Co-researcher selection (KU architecture students)

Team formation: 4 teams of two (1 male+1 female)

3

4

October

2011

1 Co-researcher training

Focus Group Discussion (FGD) in each of the selected settlements

(1 day/settlement)

Selection of initial respondents (and later snowballing for finalizing

pool of respondent households)

Creation of contact database for all respondents

Questionnaire testing in each of the selected settlements; PI will

accompany each team to their initiation of survey

Feedback from all teams of co-researchers

Necessary adjustments to questionnaire

First phase of data collection at dwelling/household level (expected

data collection rate: 1 household/day by a team)

2+3

4

November

2011

1+3+4 First phase data collection at dwelling/household level continues

An expert (architectural background) will be employed for

November and December for finalizing drawings (and if possible,

sketches and 3-D figures)

Simultaneous search for secondary materials/information from

Khulna/Dhaka/Kolkata sources

December

2011

1+2 First phase data collection at dwelling/household level finishes

Second phase of data collection and drawing preparation at

settlement level (expected data collection rate and drawing

preparation: 1 settlement/week by a team of 4)

3+4

January

2012-July

2012

29 Come back to Singapore

Compilation of accumulated data from first phase of fieldwork

Presentation to and feedback from Supervisors

Refinement to questions to be asked and data to be collected

Work simultaneously on seminar papers and journal articles

Engage in Department’s academic and research activities

August

2012

1 Come back to Khulna

Check back and finalize data collection at household level

Interview of Key personnel by PI – phase 1: (local politicians, long

living Khulna residents, local businessmen)

Dhaka visit for one week to collect national-level information

2

3+4

September

2012

1+2 Finalization of data collection and drawing preparation at settlement

level (expected data collection rate and drawing preparation is 1

settlement/week by a team of 4)

Interview of Key personnel by PI – phase 2: (urban historians,

planners, public sector bureaucrats dealing with housing) 3+4

October

2012

1+2+3 Third phase of data collection (at the city level) from secondary

sources (KDA, KCC, Satellite images etc.) (expected data collection

rate: 1 settlement/week by a team of 4)

Starting of data compilation (drawing finalization; coding of semi-

structured interview data) 4

November

2012

1 Site re-visits to compensate for possibly missing data

Finalization of drawings and coding respectively

Preparation of a preliminary report (summary)

2

3+4

291

List of publications during PhD candidature

Book

- Hakim S. S. 2010, Of the Rough Waters and onto the City: Livelihood-

biographies of the rural migrant from the coasts of Bangladesh, LAP

LAMBERT Academic Publishing, Saarbrücken

Journal

- Hakim S. S. and J. L. Ee Man 2013, “Scarcity, control and negotiations: An

interpretation of urban form in Khulna”, Planum. The Journal of Urbanism

(selected and under final review)

Seminar/Conference paper

- Hakim S. S. 2011, “The rural face of urban constraints: coastal migrants

livelihood vulnerabilities beyond the climate question”, Bangladesh Urban

Research Forum, GIZ Good Urban Governance, 26-27 May, Khulna

University, Khulna

- Hakim S. S. and J. L. Ee Man 2013, “Scarcity, Control and Third World Urban

Form”, PhD Conference: Scarcity and Creativity in the Built Environment,

HERA (Humanities in European Research Area), 26-28 February, University of

Westminster, London